Arkan Palm receives EGP 1.5bn bank finance for 1st phase of ‘205’ real estate project

A banking alliance has concluded a long-term financing contract worth EGP 1.5bn with Arkan Palm for Real Estate Investment to finance part of the investment cost of the company’s first phase of the “205” real estate project in Sheikh Zayed City.

The alliance includes five banks: the Export Development Bank of Egypt (EBE), as the main arranger, general coordinator, and guarantee; the Housing and Development Bank (HDB); the United Bank; Suez Canal Bank, and MID Bank.

The contributions of each bank in the financing came as follows: EGP 650m from EBE, EGP 300m from HDB, EGP 250m from the United Bank, EGP 150m from Suez Canal Bank, and EGP 150m from MID Bank.

Mervat Sultan, Chairperson of EBE, said this cooperation is not the first among the five banks, and will not be the last in the field of corporate finance.

She stressed her appreciation for the distinctive architectural models that Arkan Palm offers, which match the top international architectural models.

Hassan Ghanem, Chairperson of HDB, affirmed the bank’s constant keenness on supporting and providing the necessary financing for major projects. This positively contributes to creating an added value for society and achieving sustainable development. The bank believes in the vital role of the banking sector in supporting the national economy in all fields.

Moreover, Hussein Refaey, Chairperson and Managing Director of Suez Canal Bank, highlighted the importance of the bank’s participation in this joint financing which targets one of the important real estate development projects, implemented by one of the leading companies in the field.

Ashraf El-Kady, Chairperson of the United Bank, said that his bank always supported real estate investment in all its categories. He noted that the United Bank was the 7th largest bank in terms of pumping real estate investments in the Egyptian market.

Eman Abo Zeid, head of the bank credit and syndicated loans sector at MID Bank, emphasized the bank’s role in supporting various projects. This is in line with the state’s ambitious plan to attract investors and provide all facilities to support the investment sector in Egypt.

Mamdouh Badr El-Din, founder and president of Badr El-Din Group, said that the 205 project is a partnership between the New Urban Communities Authority (NUCA) and Arkan Palm. He noted that the project will act as a central service area in west Cairo, at the economic, commercial, tourist, recreational, educational, and medical levels, in cooperation with major authorities.

The first phase of the project is about 56 feddan. The project consists of residential buildings, commercial, administrative and recreational units. It also includes a medical area with an international hospital, medical clinics, a nursing home, a school and three hotels. It is located next to the Nile University and directly overlooks the 26th of July axis. It will include a 2-km-long river surrounding the residential area, separating its residential and service parts.

Al-Sisi orders formulation of management, maintenance system for New Capital’s neighbourhoods

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi has directed the formulation of an integrated plan regarding the management and maintenance system for the neighbourhoods and facilities of the New Administrative Capital, in order to achieve and ensure the sustainability and efficiency of the city.

During a Sunday meeting with a number of ministers, the president followed up on several infrastructure projects in the New Capital, including electricity supply, telecommunications network, and digital services.

The meeting included Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, Minister of Electricity and Renewable Energy Mohamed Shaker, Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Khaled El-Anany, Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat, and Minister of Housing, Utilities and Urban Communities Assem El-Gazzar.

Egyptian Presidency Spokesperson Bassam Rady stated that the meeting also dealt with the execution progress of the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), including its main halls and galleries, and the plan of transferring artefacts from different sites to the museum.

He directed the government to scrutinize all display systems in GEM in order to show the uniqueness and nobility of the ancient Egyptian civilization, emphasizing the value of the museum as a cultural icon for all humanity.

The Museum aims to provide a unique experience to learn about the Egyptian civilization by displaying archaeological artefacts in an atmosphere that is similar to the ancient Egyptian civilization with its distinguished architecture.

The President also reviewed the recent transfer of the first Khufu boat from the Pyramids area to GEM.

Al-Sisi was briefed on the rates of tourist flows and the latest preparations for the winter season starting next month, as well as the current restoration work in a number of archaeological sites including the Luxor Temple, the Rams Road, and Mohamed Ali Palace in Shubra.

GEM is one of the largest museum development projects in the world, and it will be the largest archaeological museum in the world once completed.

The museum’s total land area is around 490,000 sqm with a total built-up area of 167,000 sqm, divided mainly into three basic categories, exhibition galleries, conference centre, landscaping areas, commercial retail and restaurants.

Located next to the Giza Pyramids, the museum will host over 100,000 artefacts that belong to the ancient Egyptian civilization.

United Bank joins alliance to establish ‘Lighthouse’ educational platform with EGP 1.75bn capital

The United Bank has joined an alliance to establish the Lighthouse platform for educational investments with a target capital of EGP 1.75bn. The alliance includes The Sovereign Fund of Egypt (TSFE), Banque Misr, and Misr Insurance Holding Company.

Along with other investors, the alliance will subscribe in the first closing of the educational platform, with a value exceeding EGP 500m.

The Lighthouse platform has promising opportunities for growth and is in line with the alliance’s strategy by investing in Egyptian cadres who are able to form influential projects in the education sector through establishing new schools and buying existing schools, which the platform aspires to improve and maximize.

According to the new partnership agreement, the platform will be managed under the supervision of Hossam El-Qabbany – a specialist in the management and construction of schools and one of the founders of Orman Schools – in addition to Ironwood Investments and Misr Capital.

Ashraf El-Kady, Chairperson and Managing Director of the United Bank, said that the investment in education is an implementation of the policy of the Egyptian state and the directives of the political leadership to pay attention to the educational system and maximize its investments to support it technically.

Farag Abdel Hamid, Vice President of the United Bank; Ahmed El-Ghandour, Assistant Managing Director for Institutional Strategy and Investment; Ghada Mostafa, Head of the Investment Sector; and Ahmed Hablas, Head of Treasury and Capital Markets Sector at the United Bank, witnessed the ceremony.

He referred to the launch of the National Human Rights Strategy 2021, where the top priority was to invest in the educational system in its various stages of basic and technical education and higher education in accordance with Egypt’s Vision 2030.

He added that the institutional partnership between banking institutions and civil society institutions specialized in education, which resulted in the Lighthouse platform for educational investments, is one of the mechanisms for maximizing returns from the learning outcomes of citizens by upgrading the Egyptian educational system.

El-Kady explained that the educational system and technical education receive great attention from the Egyptian state. It considers them the locomotive of development, which is why the Ministry of Education and Technical Education and the Ministry of Higher Education seek to develop visions, mechanisms, and plans to meet the needs of the labour market and provide real job opportunities for graduates.

For his part, Hossam El-Qabbany, Chairperson of Lighthouse, stated that the school education sector is in dire need of the private sector to bridge the educational gap and include the latest educational management methods to effectively contribute to comprehensive national development.

He added that the vision of the Lighthouse platform is to provide a distinguished educational service within the reach of the middle class family.

Mohamed El-Sharif, CEO of Ironwood Investments and Deputy Chairperson of Lighthouse, said that Lighthouse was established with all the necessary ingredients to be a pioneer in education for the middle class, including technical, administrative and financial foundations.

He added that the platform has identified the schools in which it will start in the first investment round and seeks to start the second investment round before the end of 2022.

Beltone Financial acted as the financial advisor, while Matouk Bassiouny law Firm acted as the legal advisor to Lighthouse, while the Sovereign Fund of Egypt hired Renaissance Capital as the financial advisor and Baker & McKenzie as the legal advisor, while Al Kamel’s office acted as the legal advisor to Banque Misr and Misr Capital.

Youth Love Egypt Foundation participates in workshop on climate change in Kenya
The Youth Love Egypt Foundation has participated in a climate change workshop at Kenyatta University in Kenya. The event lasted for two weeks until 13 September.

Over the two weeks, the Foundation joined sessions discussing several topics including causes of climate change, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

President of the Youth Love Egypt Foundation, Ahmed Fathy, spoke about the Egyptian state’s efforts to adapt to climate changes and the Foundation’s projects in quality, especially the EPP training programme.

Al-Doshi Mahdi, the Foundation’s scientific advisor, also reviewed the Foundation’s efforts to reduce the use of plastic and hygiene campaigns, as well as raising awareness within universities.

In a session entitled the history of international environmental policy, Stockholm, Johannesburg, and Rio summits, the participants discussed the most important lessons learned from summits and negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention.

Fathy spoke about the activation of the environmental law in Egypt since the law was launched in 1994 and its amendments, referring to the efforts of the Egyptian state in activating environmental laws, which contributed to eliminating rice straw burning and reducing pollution in many factories and some private stories.

He also participated in the 50th anniversary of the celebration of the United Nations Environment Program with the participation of the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment in an important session entitled What does the United Nations Environment Program mean in its 50th year for African youth.

On the sidelines of the training, Fathy and Aldoshi visited the Karura forest to learn about the efforts to protect nature there and the success story in restoring the forest after many encroachments, and a group of trees were planted by the participants on the sixth day in a row.

The Youth Love Egypt Foundation was keen to participate in further consolidating its role in preserving the environment, and add more experiences in the areas of reducing the use of plastic, sustainable development and climate change, and the Foundation looks forward to more participation and activities in the coming period.

Egypt determined to improve lives of 58 million citizens within 3 years: President Al-Sisi
Egypt aims to achieve 7% growth over next 4 years, says Prime Minister Madbouly

gypt is determined to improve the lives of 58 million citizens within the next three years, President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi has announced, asserting that the government will complete the “Decent Life” initiative in only three years, instead of 10 years.

Al-Sisi witnessed on Tuesday the launch of the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Human Development Report (HDR) in Egypt for 2021, in cooperation with the Ministry of Planning and Development. The ceremony, held in the New Administrative Capital, was also attended by Egypt’s Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly and Minister of Planning and Economic Development Hala El-Said.

During his speech, Al-Sisi said that HDR 2021 is a testimony to the Egyptian people’s patience and strength in the face of challenges.

He affirmed that the Egyptian people are the real heroes in the construction and development process during the past seven years.

He continued that the Egyptian government’s development operations targeted all sectors. He noted that Egypt has faced several challenges over the past eight years, mainly terrorism, explaining that Egypt adopted two parallel paths in facing terrorism; human development and security operations.

Al-Sisi indicated that the state’s performance in the development process was characterized by strength, speed, comprehensiveness, and depth, as Egypt considered the war against terrorism as a construction and development battle.

He noted that Egypt does not have refugee camps, but rather refugees in Egypt are treated like citizens, asserting that the government provides all services to refugees of all nationalities. Egypt hosts about 5-6 million refugees, as big as the population of two countries, Al-Sisi said.

Moreover, Egypt’s Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly asserted the Egyptian state has a development plan that runs until 2030 in order to recover high growth rates. Egypt witnessed a growth rate of 7.7% in the last quarter of fiscal year (FY) 2020/21, he noted.

“We continue to confront main challenges facing the Egyptian people, including human development in light of the increasing population growth,” Madbouly said. Reducing the population growth rate in Egypt during the coming 10-15 years will make a big difference in the development process.

He pointed to Egypt’s recent mega projects, including green recovery initiative, digital transformation, and mechanization of public services.

Madbouly noted that the President directed the government to study all the recommendations in the Human Development Report 2021.

He explained that during the past 10 years, Egypt witnessed two revolutions, which imposed many security and political challenges, and very large repercussions on the Egyptian economy, in addition to the structural problems that the national economy has been suffering from for decades, stressing that Egypt adopted an economic reform programme aimed primarily at reforming these imbalances, seeking to provide new job opportunities for young people.

He asserted that the reform plan also aims to improve the standard of living of the individual, as well as upgrading the services provided to them, and achieving social justice and sustainable development within the framework of Egypt’s Vision 2030, in addition to trying to attract more national, regional and international investments to support the Egyptian economy.

The Prime Minister stressed that the economic reform program had achieved positive numbers reflecting the success of the Egyptian state during a very short period of time in improving unemployment rates, inflation rates, increasing gross domestic product, and increasing the value of international reserves and reducing the budget deficit.

He asserted that Egypt is among the few countries in the world that succeeded in maintaining a positive growth rate, as it achieved, in FY 2020/21, a growth rate of 3.3%, with a gross domestic product exceeding $408bn.

“We are targeting 7% growth over the next four years,” Madbouly confirmed.

He added that the Egyptian state had recently announced the second part of the economic reform programme, which is related to structural reforms in the Egyptian economy, pushing all sectors to increase their effectiveness.

UNDP’s HDR transforms poverty reduction, human development goals into action plans: El-Said

he United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Human Development Report (HDR) is one of the most important international reports that monitor the status of human development, according to Egypt’s Minister of Planning and Economic Development Hala El-Said.

UNDP launched on Tuesday its HDR in Egypt for 2021 during a ceremony attended by Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi and Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly in the New Administrative Capital.

El-Said said Egypt was one of the first countries that documented the status of local human development; noting that 11 HDRs have been issued since 1994, and this year’s report is the 12th edition.

She pointed out that the Human Development Report was first issued in 1990 by Pakistani economist Mahbub-ul-Haq and Indian thinker Amartya Sen; Nobel laureate in economics.

El-Said emphasized that human development reports contribute to strengthening national capacities to collect and analyze data related to human development and raise awareness of human development issues.

El-Said said that the key to the work that we celebrate launching today is the term partnership; this partnership is present in the report’s title “Development is a right for all”, as gathering benefits the sharing of development efforts and its returns.

The minister added that the report reflects the capacity of the Egyptian state and its keenness to produce and make data available. The report also deals in depth with all development issues and their concerns. This makes him an accurate observer of the state of development in Egypt, with its challenges and achievements.

El-Said pointed out that the Egypt Human Development Report in 2021 came to monitor the march of a full decade of the life of the country and to draw the path for a “Good and bright future, that we work with determination to achieve.”

The work started seven years ago, based on comprehensive planning and an ambitious vision for the future, the features of which were defined by the “Sustainable Development Strategy: Egypt’s Vision 2030” as the national version of the UN goals to achieve sustainable development.

El-Said said that the state understands that achieving economic growth and improving economic indicators and recovery; will not have value unless it is positively reflected on the quality of citizen’s lives, which is consistent with the concept adopted by UNDP from 1990 to define and measure development.

She added that the Egyptian state seeks to mobilize all available capabilities and resources to expand public investments, which increased by more than sevenfold between 2014 and 2021, to implement major development projects and initiatives in all sectors.

El-Said also referred to the presidential initiative for the development of the Egyptian countryside, “Decent Life”, which targets more than half of Egypt’s population in villages and rural areas.

“It is a purely Egyptian development experience; the initiative is considered the largest comprehensive and integrated development initiative in the world, both in terms of the size of its financial allocations or the size of its beneficiaries,” Egypt’s Planning Minister explained.

She confirmed that all these efforts resulted in many positive indicators, especially in high growth rates, declining unemployment rates, and low inflation.

“A trilogy that experts and those concerned with economic affairs know the difficulty of achieving together until a new challenge emerges, represented in the spread of COVID-19,” she said.

El-Said pointed out that the reform efforts achieved by the Egyptian state in recent years have been credited with enhancing the ability of the Egyptian economy to withstand this pandemic, so the Egyptian experience in dealing with the pandemic has received international praise.

She added that Egypt is working to confront many challenges, foremost of which are climate change and population growth, which increases the imbalance between the size of the population and the available resources and negatively affects the per capita share of development returns.

UN Resident Coordinator praises upgrade of Egyptian women role in decision-making

The recent legislative reforms and measures to increase the representation of women in decision-making positions deserve praise and appreciation, Elena Panova, United Nations Resident Coordinator in Egypt, has said.

She also praised Egypt’s proactive role in the progress towards achieving the sustainable development goals and sharing its experience with the global community under the leadership of the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development.

Egypt hosted a conference on Tuesday to launch the UN Human Development Report (HDR) for 2021 in the New Administrative Capital.

During her speech at the conference, Panova congratulated the Egyptian government and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for launching the 12th edition of the HDR in Egypt.

Since 1994, the UN HDR has played a pivotal role in shaping the human development policy in Egypt. The report is essential because it depicts the development journey in Egypt in the past decade.

“It [HDR 2021] comes nearly a decade since the last report in 2010. The report covers a long journey of political, economic, and social transformation in Egypt, which in turn was reflected in the achievement of the human development agenda over the past 10 years,” Panova said.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) intends to direct $1trn towards public spending and private investments in Egypt to achieve sustainable development goals within four years, according to Director of UNDP Achim Steiner.

Steiner’s remarks came during a video message to the UNDP conference to issue the first Human Development Report (HDR) on Egypt in a decade.

She added that Egypt is one of the first countries in the world to adopt the human development concept, which revolves around expanding an understanding of the various dimensions of human wealth beyond the limited concept of economic richness. The approach cares for people and expands the opportunities and choices available to them.

He mentioned that UNDP is proud to have worked with Egypt since 1994 to issue the national human development reports, adding that the report that was launched on Tuesday focused on a period of time that witnessed important changes in Egypt and was characterized by major economic and social transformations.

The report monitors the achievements made by Egypt in the fields of health, education, and housing. For example, the state offers four more years of public education to students today compared to three decades ago.

The report also presents global development opportunities and challenges, as global poverty rates and inequalities increased as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to a decline in human development for the first time globally since 1990, while Egypt responded proactively to the crises that we all face in the areas of climate and environment. Egypt established the Council in 2019 the National Climate Change Program. He stressed that UNDP is proud to cooperate with Egypt to support the development of a new national strategy on climate change.