[Economics] “Unlimited number.” Egypt opens the door for foreigners to own real estate

[Guest High King Eslam]

The Egyptian government decided to open the way for foreigners to own real estate in Egypt without being restricted to a specific number of them, with the aim of attracting more hard currency to the country, according to statements by Egyptian Prime Minister Dr. Mostafa Madbouly.

Madbouly said, in a press conference held at the government headquarters in the New Administrative Capital, that the decisions regulated in the past were that the maximum limit for any foreigner who wants to own a property in Egypt is two, and they are in two different cities.

And he continued: “Today, the Minister of Justice will work with all parties to release this number so that any foreigner who wants to come and own real estate inside Egypt can own any number of real estate, as long as this is within the framework of the controls that include paying the value of these real estate and with the priority of payment in free currency.”

He added, “President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi stressed, in the recent meeting of the Supreme Investment Council, that the Egyptian state is going through a milestone, which requires from all sides to work towards an important main goal, which is to increase the participation of the private sector in investments in development projects undertaken by the Egyptian state, and to ensure Extreme boldness in making decisions, reviewing laws, regulatory decisions, and administrative procedures in force, in order to expedite and facilitate procedures to attract the largest volume of investments and encourage the private sector to take the lead with the state in the next stage.

Madbouly pointed out that Sisi directed the Investment Council to convene monthly, instead of every three months, and to continue the state's efforts to double and pump investments and increase job opportunities, stressing the need for each ministry to commit to implementing the decisions issued by the council's meeting, yesterday, Tuesday.

He added that there are specific timelines for the implementation of these assignments, and their implementation will be followed up periodically, and they aim to create a more attractive climate for investments, work to solve any problems facing investors, and overcome obstacles or challenges that may arise due to economic conditions.

The solution is to increase investment

In a related context, the Egyptian Prime Minister reviewed the development of the volume of investments made by the state and the private sector together, from 2005 until the present time, as he explained that the total investments during the year 2005-2006 made by the private sector and the state together amounted to about 116 billion. pounds, while the volume of investments allocated for the next year 2023-2024 is about 1.64 trillion pounds, which roughly means that over this period there has been a 15-fold increase in investments, explaining that the volume of investments, if it continued at its simple rates, would not keep pace with the increase in the size of the Egyptian state and the rapid population growth. And the country would inevitably face enormous problems in many matters, including infrastructure and services, and everything it might need for growth.

The Prime Minister explained that the volume of investments was moving at slow rates over a period of ten years, and then began to increase, indicating that this was not due to the lack of the role of the private sector during this period, but rather to the role of the Egyptian government, which began to increase its investments in order to achieve growth rates, and that Because the country during this period was assessing the conditions that the private sector went through, beginning in 2011 and the turmoil that occurred at that time, and in 2015 and the beginning of the economic reform steps, then that was followed by conditions that the whole world went through from the Corona pandemic, and the Russian-Ukrainian crisis.

He explained, saying: It was natural for the private sector to fear pumping investments anywhere, so the choice that the Egyptian government took in the previous stage was to pump investments to compensate for the slowdown by the private sector, as a step to increase job and employment opportunities, which the government was able to do. by reducing unemployment rates.

The Egyptian Prime Minister added that the focus today on the part of the Supreme Investment Council is how to increase private sector investments equal to or more than what the Egyptian government invests, as the target after three years is for the private sector’s share of the total existing investments to be 60 percent or 65 percent. , which is currently being worked on

The Prime Minister made it clear that the private sector in Egypt acquires - indeed - the lion's share in terms of the size of the establishments, the number of workers and the existing job opportunities, which is normal in any country, as there are approximately 3.75 million private sector establishments, and 79 percent of the total workers work in The private sector, and 75 percent of the gross domestic product comes from the private sector, pointing out that the problem is that more than 50 percent of the private sector is an informal sector, and 60 percent of the volume of private sector establishments works in wholesale and retail trade, that is, trade. For productive sectors: industry, agriculture and various other productive activities.

He pointed to another existing challenge represented in the fact that only 1 percent of the volume of private sector establishments is exported, meaning that there are 99 percent of them that meet the local market, explaining that this imposes on us how to encourage the private sector to export, explaining that this is what the Supreme Council for Export is working on.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian Prime Minister pointed out that among the important requests in light of inflation and the increase in the interest rate is the request of the industrial and agricultural sectors that there be an initiative from the state to bear part of the interest, which was responded to through an initiative worth 150 billion pounds, so that During which the investor bears an interest rate of 11 percent, with the state bearing the difference.

Dr. Mostafa Madbouly also explained that the tourism sector was recently included in this initiative, so that its value became 160 billion pounds, and the government also exempted 20 industrial sectors from real estate tax for a period of 3 years, or in other words, we as a country took the initiative to announce that it paid these sectors, referring to the problem-solving unit. Investors in the Council of Ministers, through which the government makes all possible efforts to solve investors’ problems, as 1,900 complaints were submitted to this unit, 1,400 of which were resolved, with an average of

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