Dubai’s Emaar Says Not Part Of Egypt’s Capital City Project

Dubai’s Emaar Properties is not involved in a project to build a new administrative capital city in Egypt, it said on Monday after Egyptian and United Arab Emirates media reports that the company would participate in the ambitious scheme.

Emaar, 29 per cent owned by state fund Investment Corporation of Dubai, last month filed a request to list its Egyptian unit on Cairo’s bourse, and the UAE is a close ally of Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

But the company said in a Dubai bourse statement on Monday that it was not involved in developing the planned new capital to the east of Cairo, which housing minister Mostafa Madbouli said on Friday would take up to seven years to build at a cost of $45 billion.

“We would like to clarify that Emaar is not involved in the development of the new capital city project in Egypt,” it said, without saying whether it might become involved in future.

Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, also prime minister of the UAE, tweeted on Friday that UAE aid to Egypt over the past two years had reached $14 billion.

Also read: How The UAE Is Helping Build Egypt’s New Capital