The military-controlled state agency developing Egypt’s new capital in the desert has said foreign companies will be brought in to operate services there.
Unnamed Chinese, French and Dutch firms will run transport, waste collection, water and electricity supply, Ahmed Zaki Abdeen, chairman of Administrative Capital for Urban Development (ACUD), told Egypt Today.
The relationship between these foreign companies and ACUD was not clear from the report, however, as Abdeen also said ACUD would divest responsibilities for running services to new subsidiaries of its own creation.
"ACUD will be turned into a holding company with subsidiaries operating in different fields, as companies of water, electricity, technology, maintenance, safety, and transportation will be founded," he said.
Also in the New Administrative Capital yesterday, Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi inaugurated Egypt’s largest Christian cathedral, the newly-built Cathedral of Nativity, in a show of unity with the country’s Coptic Christians, estimated to comprise around 10% of Egypt’s population.
The same day saw the opening of the newly-constructed Al-Fattah Al-Aleem mosque at the site of the new capital. It can accommodate around 16,000 worshipers, said the BBC.
Image: Artist’s render of Egypt’s New Administrative Capital, planned for a 725-sq-km site in the desert east of Cairo (Courtesy of the Urban Development Consortium, UDC+5)
See also:
