With government relocated, Egypt set to unveil overhaul of downtown Cairo

Egypt's sovereign wealth fund is finalising a masterplan to revamp Cairo's historic centre now that government ministries have largely moved to a new capital to the east, and hopes to break ground on the project within months, its chief executive said.

The area, modelled on Paris in the 1860s, is filled with elegant but crumbling buildings constructed over the subsequent seven decades. Many were nationalised in the 1950s and 1960s and left in disrepair.

The Sovereign Fund has already taken control of three prime properties in central Cairo, and received ownership of 11 former ministry buildings in a decree published this week in the official gazette.

It is also overseeing the real estate portfolio of Misr Insurance Holding, which includes nearly a hundred buildings, most built before World War Two.

The blueprint includes the government quarter on the southern edge of downtown and involves traffic plans, area surveys and plans to repurpose various buildings, the fund's CEO, Ayman Soliman, told Reuters. The fund will bring in private companies to own and finance much of the properties.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and two international advisers are helping to draw it up.

"It's coming over the course of the coming weeks," Soliman said.