SHARM SHEIKH: Egypt plans to build a new administrative and business capital east of Cairo that will house five million people and feature a theme park “four times bigger than Disneyland”, a minister announced at a global investor conference.

Housing Minister Mustafa Kamel Madbuli said the new city would relieve pressure on overcrowded Cairo, with its population of 18 million expected to double in coming decades.

“The idea to build the new city originated from our awareness that Cairo’s current population will double in the next 40 years,” Madbuli said on Friday in a presentation showcasing the details.

Madbuli said the new city would have large green spaces and provide a better standard of living.

It will also have “an international airport, a theme park four times bigger than Disneyland in California, 90 square kilometres of solar farms, and an electric train” to link with Cairo, he added.

Parliament, presidential palaces, government ministries and foreign embassies would move to the new metropolis, the minister said, adding these projects would be executed over the next five to seven years at a cost of $45 billion (42.9bn euros).

The overall cost of the new city was not revealed, nor were details on how it would be funded.

The plans were presented at a three-day investor conference which President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi hopes will help kick-start Egypt’s troubled economy.

Sisi, who has positioned himself as a bulwark against militants, said investing in the Arab world’s most populous country would help stabilise the entire region.

Published in Dawn, March 15th, 2015

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