Egypt celebrates success of house, road-building programs

Egypt has spent millions of dollars on new urban communities over the past nine years, its housing minister said on Sunday.

Speaking at the “Story of a Homeland” conference in the New Administrative Capital, Housing and Urban Communities Minister Assem El-Gazzar said: “In the past nine years we have built 1.5 million housing units.

“We have worked to eliminate 357 unsafe areas by building more than 300,000 housing units at a construction cost exceeding 300 billion (Egyptian) pounds.”

El-Gazzar said 24 new cities that could accommodate 32 million people had been developed in the period.

The country’s Decent Life Initiative had been a major contributor to the increased urbanization, which in turn had had a significant impact on economic development, he added.