Economic expert explains challenges

Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Egyptian Saudi Construction Company Darwish Hassanein said that the Egyptian government needs to take a large number of economic decisions to improve the current situation in different fields, including the Real Estate Sector.
He added, in a statement to “Arabs Today”, that dependence on Real State sector to save Egypt’s economy is a big mistake, saying that the government should work to develop other sectors to achieve notable progress during the coming period.
He blamed the governmental decision liberate the Egyptian currency, saying that the decision taken in November led to the current increasing in the materials used in construction. He stressed that the decision led to a notable increase in the prices of lands and the costs of construction, saying that it led to increasing losses to the contracting companies and suspension of a large number of real estate projects.
He added, “The high prices are creating a difficult marketing of housing units, and there must be marketing plans to improve the relationship between the Egyptian pound and foreign currencies.” He stressed that the housing units allocated for low-income citizens is the major responsibility of the government not the investors working in the sector, saying that the investors work just to achieve gains and profits.
Regarding the increase in the interest rate announced by the Central Bank of Egypt, he said: This leads to an increase in return on deposits and consequently, there is an obligation on the return, deposits and various saving aspects.” He added that the increase in the returns on deposits and the various forms of investments on funds encourages attracting a lot of money to banks.
About the prices of residential units, the head of the Saudi-Egyptian Company said, “The rate of increase in the prices of housing units in the current economic conditions varies from developer to developer but moving between 15 and 20% increases influenced by all the elements involved in real estate investment, including the prices of raw materials, construction units, construction products complete.”