Proposed New Capital Of Egypt

New Administrative Capital (NAC) () is a new urban community east of New Cairo in Cairo Governorate, Egypt and a satellite city of Cairo. As of May 2023, 14 ministries and government entities have been relocated there. In April 2, 2024, president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi took the constitutional oath for a third consecutive term in office, officially inaugurating the New Administrative Capital as the seat of government.

Plans for the new capital were announced by the then Egyptian housing minister Mostafa Madbouly at the Egypt Economic Development Conference on the 13th of March, 2015. The capital city is considered one of the projects for economic development, and is part of a larger initiative called Egypt Vision 2030.

Over the years attempts were made to give the city a name, other than the New Administrative Capital. A competition was launched on the new capital's website to choose a new name and logo for the city. A jury of specialists was formed to evaluate the proposals submitted to list and determine the best among them. No official results were announced by the Egyptian Government. In October 2021, transportation minister Kamel al-Wazir indicated the city could be named "Wedian" (meaning "Riverbed" or "Valley"), or "Masr" (the Arabic equivalent of "Egypt"). Other proposed names include "Kemet", "Al Mustaqbal" and "Al Salam". However, by the time it was officially inaugurated in 2024, it had remained as the New Administrative Capital.

The new city is located 45 kilometres (28 miles) east of Cairo and just outside the Regional Ring Road, in a largely undeveloped area halfway to the seaport city of Suez. On a total area of , it is expected to house a population of 6.5 million people, though it is estimated that the figure could rise to seven million.

The government has stated that the undertaking of the project is to relieve congestion in Cairo, which has a metropolitan population of nearly 20 million.

Plans

The city was planned to consist of a government administrative district, a diplomatic quarter, a cultural district (opera and theatres), a central business district (CBD), parks (the 'green river'), and 21 residential districts. The NAC is being built in stages, initially over the space of 170,000 feddans (714 km²/ 270 sq mi), which later grew to 223,383 feddans (907 km²). Phase 1 (2016 – ), covering over 40,000 feddans - or less than a quarter of the land allocated for the city, holds all government, parliamentary, judicial and presidential buildings, as well as the CBD and residential districts. Plans for Phase II were mulled to start 2024, but the further 40,000 feddan expansion has been delayed to 2026.

Some amenities planned for the city are a central park, artificial lakes, around 2,000 educational institutions, technology and innovation park, 18 hospitals, 1,250 mosques and churches, a 93,440-seat stadium, 40,000 hotel rooms, a major theme park four times the size of Disneyland, 90 square kilometres of solar energy farms and electric railway link with Cairo.

It is being built as a smart city with over 6,000 cameras monitoring the streets and along with this authorities will be using AI to monitor water use and waste management, and residents will be able to submit complaints into a mobile app.

Moving state institutions

It was originally planned that parliament, presidential palaces, government ministries and foreign embassies would be moved into the city between 2020 and 2022, but due to construction delays and COVID-19 the move of over 30,000 government employees was delayed to March 2023. By 5 May 2023, 14 ministries and government entities had relocated to the New Administrative Capital. In April 2, 2024, president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's swearing in in front of Parliament for a third term in office, officially inaugurated the city as the new seat of government.

It is expected to cost over US$100 million to move the government from Cairo to NAC but a full cost and timeline for the overall project has not yet been revealed.

Feedback on former experiences of capital relocation was looked at, for instance by meeting with representatives from Astana, which replaced Almaty as the capital city of Kazakhstan in 1997.

Finance and construction

When the project was officially announced in March 2015, it was revealed that the Egyptian military had already begun building a road from Cairo to the site of the future capital.

The proposed builder of the city was Capital City Partners, a private real estate investment firm led by Emirati businessman Mohamed Alabbar.
But in September 2015, Egypt cancelled the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed with Alabbar during the March economic summit, since they did not make any progress with the proposed plans.

In the same month Egypt signed a new MoU with China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC) to "study building and financing" the administrative part of the new capital, which will include ministries, government agencies and the president's office. However, CSCEC signed agreements with Egyptian authorities in 2017 to only develop the CBD.

This left the Egyptian government to finance and manage most of the construction, setting up the Administrative Capital Urban Development Company (ACUD) on 21 April 2016, an Egyptian state owned enterprise (SOE) whose major shareholders are the Ministry of Defense ( National Service Products Organisation and the Armed Forces Land Projects Authority) holding 51% by in-kind contribution of the land, and the Ministry of Housing's New Urban Communities Authority (NUCA), holding 49% of the shares via capital injection of EGP 20bn (US$2.2bn in 2016) and an authorised capital of EGP 204bn (US$22bn).

ACUD manages the planning, subdivision, infrastructure construction and sale of land parcels in conjenction with the New Administrative Capital Development Authority affiliated to NUCA, as the latter does with its other new towns.

State-owned construction company Arab Contractors was called for constructing the water supply and sewage lines to the new capital.

Notable buildings

Mosques and cathedral

In January 2019, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi inaugurated a large-scale mosque and a cathedral.

Al-Fattah al-Aleem Mosque

Al-Fattah al-Aleem is a Sunni mosque with indoor and outdoor space for 17,000 worshipers, in addition to two Quran memorization houses for men and women and a library.

The Islamic Cultural Center (Grand Mosque)

The Islamic Cultural Center (Grand Mosque) is the largest mosque in Africa. The mosque is built in the Mamluk style and is on a hill overlooking the New Administrative Capital. It is the largest of mosque in Egypt and third largest in the Middle East.

The Nativity of Christ Cathedral

The Nativity of Christ is a Coptic Orthodox cathedral that can accommodate more than 8,000 worshippers. It is considered the largest of its kind in Egypt and the Middle East.

Green River Park

"The green Nile" as the Egyptians called it while it was being made.
The Green River Park (also known as Capital Park) is an urban park planned to extend along the entirety of the new capital, representing the Nile river. It is expected to be long, aiming to be double the size of New York's Central Park. The initial phase of the park will be of about the first and is under construction.

The Octagon

The Octagon (State's Strategic Leadership Centre) is Egypt's new Ministry of Defense headquarters. The complex is considered the largest of its kind in the Middle East and one of the largest in the world, much like the Pentagon in the United States of America.

Capital International Airport

The Capital International Airport is the airport for Egypt's new capital, intended to relieve pressure on Cairo International Airport, serving Cairo, and the Sphinx International Airport, near the Giza Pyramids, serving Giza.

Egypt International Olympic City

A whole "city/village" built as a sports complex for the country's possible bids for international sporting events, particularly the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup with more than 22 sporting facilities, one of which is the fourth biggest football stadium in the world. The Misr Stadium (also known as Sports City Stadium) opened in 2024 with a capacity of over 93,900 people; it is the largest stadium in Egypt and the second largest in Africa. The stadium is expected to replace the Cairo International Stadium as the new national stadium.

Central business district

Skyscrapers and towers under construction

Iconic Tower

Over 30 skyscrapers are under construction, including the Iconic Tower, set to be Egypt and Africa's largest skyscraper.

MU10

MU7 Area

MU19

Future proposed towers

Oblisco Capitale

The Oblisco Capitale is a planned and approved skyscraper set to be inaugurated in 2030. It is designed by the Egyptian architectural design fir
IDIA
in the form of a Pharaonic obelisk, and if built, it would be the tallest building in the world at a height of , surpassing the world's tallest tower, Burj Khalifa.

Transportation

The Cairo Light Rail Transit (abbreviated LRT) connects Cairo to the New Administrative Capital. The line starts at Adly Mansour Station at Al Salam City on Cairo Metro Line 3, and splits into two branches at Badr City. One runs northward, parallel to the Cairo Ring Road, to 10th of Ramadan City, while the other turns south towards the New Administrative Capital. Intermediate cities along the train's route include Obour, Shorouk, and Mostaqbal.

In addition, a monorail line under construction will connect Cairo to the new capital, with connections to the Cairo Metro and the Cairo LRT.

In January 2021, Egypt signed a contract with Siemens to construct a high speed rail line that extends from the northern Mediterranean city of El Alamein to Ain Sokhna city on the Red Sea passing through the new capital and Alexandria. The line is expected to be finished by 2023. Later phases of the high speed network will connect the new capital with cities as far as Aswan in the south of Egypt.

The New Administrative Capital will be served by the new Capital International Airport. The airport includes a passenger terminal with a current capacity of 300 passengers per hour, eight parking spaces for aircraft, 45 service and administrative buildings, an air control tower and a runway suitable for receiving large aircraft, equipped with lighting and automatic landing systems. The airport has an area of and is expected to partially ease the pressure on Cairo International Airport and Sphinx International Airport.

Criticism

Social inequality

Many have criticized the city for being designed primarily for the upper classes rather than the middle and lower classes. This is not the first time the Egyptian government has attempted to build cities outside the Nile Delta and Valley to alleviate the overpopulation of Cairo. However, previous attempts have failed in their mission due to these cities being marketed to the upper-middle and upper classes. The high prices of the housing units made them unaffordable for the majority of the population, resulting in many of the units remaining unsold.

Economic impact

The Egyptian government's ability to finance the project has been put into question. Although president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi stated that "the state won't pay a penny" for the new capital, funds from the public coffers continue to flow into building the capital, adding to that the loans the government has acquired to fund the project, which has significantly increased the national debt and driven high inflation.

See also

* List of purpose-built national capitals
* List of universities in Egypt
* Egypt Vision 2030
* New Cairo
* New Alamein
* Al Galala

References

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Economy of Egypt
Cities in Egypt
Proposed populated places
Planned capitals
Populated places in Cairo Governorate
Planned communities in Egypt
Districts of Greater Cairo
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Abdel Fattah el-Sisi