Egypt has reached an agreement worth EGP 11 trillion (USD 202 billion) with the Talaat Moustafa Group to develop four major mixed-use projects.
The deal was announced on the sidelines of the “Urban Development” session on the second day of Egypt Forum 2026 on Tuesday, 20 October, as President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi directed the construction of hundreds of thousands of new rental units.
The projects include a development north of Madinaty and an 11.3-million-square-metre project in central Alexandria.
They also include an integrated industrial, logistics and real estate project in the Abu Qir area and a North Coast destination modelled on the SouthMED development.
Turning to housing policy, el-Sisi said the aim of the old rent law is to break the exclusive mindset of ownership and revive renting as an alternative to buying a home.
He argued that the housing model pursued over previous decades helped create a major crisis of slums and unplanned housing.
Presidential Spokesman Ambassador Mohamed El-Shennawy detailed Egypt’s urban expansion and transport overhauls since 2014. His presentation covered the construction of 61 new cities and the delivery of 1.96 million new housing units.
It also covered the eradication of slums, the development of Khedivial Cairo, and the upgrading of major cities and provincial capitals across 13 governorates.
The session also reviewed the state of the transport sector before 2014 and the achievements since in roads, bridges, the metro, electric traction, railways, maritime transport and ports.
The government outlined targets for governance, for reducing accidents and for promoting green public transport in every governorate. It also set out goals for localizing industry, including the domestic manufacturing of railway carriages and other means of transport.
The president then argued that proposing “ideal” solutions to complex challenges is often unrealistic and self-defeating, because such proposals rarely account for the scale and complexity of the problems.
He pointed to Egypt’s historical concentration of its population on only about 7 percent of a landmass of 60,000 to 70,000 square kilometres, which he described as an unnatural and inhumane situation. That imbalance, he said, produced adverse social, security, cultural and investment consequences.
Together with the absence of comprehensive urban planning to accommodate population growth, it contributed to the spread of informal settlements around Cairo, deteriorating transport services and other harmful practices.
Stressing the need for practical approaches, el-Sisi noted that current road tolls cover neither the cost of investment nor even maintenance. He also pointed to the state’s success in resolving the electricity crisis, which he said was necessary to stabilise the country, strengthen the state and support development.
Concluding his remarks, el-Sisi said that national development typically takes 50 to 100 years, so it is unreasonable to expect Egypt to complete such a transformation in 10 to 12 years.
Achieving the desired level of progress within 20 to 30 years would, in his view, be a significant accomplishment, given Egypt’s limited resources and the scale of the challenges facing state institutions.
He reaffirmed that the state intends to complete its ongoing development plans, including the “Decent Life” (Haya Karima) rural development initiative, by 2030 at the latest. el-Sisi said this would be supported by partnerships with the private sector and by state support for investors.
