CAIRO - In an attempt to raise foreign currency, mainly dollars, the Ministry of Housing has decided to offer 40,000 piece of lands to Egyptian expatriates for purchase in seven new cities: 6th October, el-Sheikh Zayed, New Cairo and Badr, and new cities in Aswan, Damietta and el-Minya. The first tranche of 8,625 pieces of land will be offered for sale next month, with the purchasers being given their land next January, including utilities, having paid the first instalment in April. Minister Fathi el-Baradei announced that the land would be sold on a first come, first served basis. The locations, prices and specifications of the land will be announced on a website; Egyptians will have to pay in dollars. Each plot of land will range between 700 and 800 square metres in area, with the prices ranging between $150 and $500 per square metre, depending on the location. El-Baradei's project comes in the wake of some noted Egyptian expatriates and businessmen suggesting that huge funds need to be raised to prop up the country's economy at this critical stage. The original suggestion was to create a luxury housing compound in October 6th City, rather than selling land in seven different new cities, leaving the expatriates to actually build the housing themselves within five years at the most. El-Baradei has now chosen the easiest strategy, that followed by the Ministry of Housing under Ahmed el-Maghrabi, during Mubarak's rule, when the Ministry launched the ‘Build Your Own Home' project for young people, instead of building them moderately priced homes. At the time, young people found it very difficult to build their homes according to the deadline, as building materials shot up dramatically in price and Bedouin raided the project. The Ministry could make a lot of money out of selling this land – up to $400,000 (around LE2.4 million) per piece. But how can these expatriates leave their jobs overseas and come back here to build their homes within five years of purchasing the land? Many Egyptian expatriates want to help salvage the Egyptian economy and to own a decent flat or villa in a nice district. However, they need to be given some more incentives to encourage them to pay so much money. The least the Ministry could do is to get some big contracting companies to build their homes for them.
