Sabour reveals obstacles in Egyptian real estate sector

Hussain Sabour, President of Al-Ahly Group for Real Estate Development, revealed that the most important challenges facing the real estate development market are the expanding outside the Greater Cairo and creating an international presence in the international real estate market.

"We also try to maintain our ability to attract the customer, with the case of price rises that exceeded 400% in less than 10 years, encouraging them to invest in the real estate sector, and resisting the temptation of bank deposit, especially after raising interest rates,"Sabour added.

He added that obstacles hindering the expansion of investment in the real estate sector, which avoids investment, in addition to the lack of clarity of laws, which causes disasters, and makes the small employee able to block the procedures of projects in millions. "The state also suffers from a problem in the speed of passing legislation, which investors need, which we are currently working with government agencies to solve these problems," he indicated.

Sabour added that the legislation needed by the real estate sector Egyptian real estate market are awaiting the adoption of a set of legislation, which will be considered by parliament in the second session, most notably the establishment of a general union for real estate developers, drafting a law on real estate development, which regulates the work of the Egyptian market, and another law fights real estate fraud, infringing or unauthorized construction.

He indicated that the legislation is capable of improving the general atmosphere of the real estate market and transforming the real estate sector into an attractive environment for investment.

"The government should expedite the process of legislating laws to promote investments, shortening the steps of establishing companies, fighting government routines, and easing complex procedures in terms of obtaining building permits, land allocation and more facilities provided by the government to investors, to support the Egyptian economy, Sabour stated.

He pointed out that the most important factors needed by Egypt to achieve economic renaissance are manufacturing and export production, as well as quality that requires access to other expertise, training of productive industrial labor and developing its working methods, using modern machines for creating global competition for our products.

He stressed that direct investment plays a major role in the advancement of the Egyptian economy, but Egypt is experiencing a significant decline, especially after the revolution of 25 January, and then achieved 16.3 billion dollars, and this figure has not been achieved so far.

Sabour added that the foreign investor faces many problems, the most important of which is the bureaucracy and corruption, and the inherent bribes in many sectors, stressing that investor prefer to work in a country where the percentage of corruption is low.

He said that the real estate market was affected by the high cost of raw materials, which moved the prices of the final product, and caused rise in property prices, and decline in purchasing power and in sales.