Egypt turns to illegal buildings to tackle housing crisis

Egypt plans to offer cheap loans for completing apartments in unfinished buildings thrown up illegally across its cities, hoping to tackle a housing crisis that has helped to topple two presidents since 2011.

Housing Minister Mustafa Madbouly said the cabinet had approved the project designed to help Egyptians who built or bought bare apartments in the unplanned buildings but can't afford to finish them, many living in the empty shells.

"Instead of, as a government, directly constructing new buildings we are going to offer an initiative through which we give a soft loan to people to go and finish those vacancies," Madbouly said in an interview for the Reuters Middle East Investment Summit.

Madbouly arguably has Egypt's toughest job. A population of 85 million is squeezed into the small percentage of land that isn't desert, mainly in narrow strips on the banks of the Nile and in its river delta.