Driving into the New Administrative Capital (NAC), it’s hard to miss the massive structures on the horizon comprising the government’s new headquarters and the business district with the Iconic Tower, Africa’s tallest building, at the center. A broader look shows swaths of desert separating those two complexes with mostly completed, lightly inhabited residential neighborhoods. They dot phase one’s 40,000 acres, which should house 6.5 million to 7 million residents. That bird’s-eye view highlights how much construction remains for the city to attract its targeted “18 [million] to 40 million people by 2050,” according to NAC’s website. The new city is…
Author: Tamer Hafez
The need to cultivate more crops using less natural resources to ensure food security is not new. “The technology and agricultural practices in the last 40 years have led to the degradation of productive land, large greenhouse gas emissions, and extensive water pollution,” said the UN in 2011. In 2023, food shortages have become a real threat for many countries, particularly in the MENA region, where more than 50% of food is imported, according to the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, a nonprofit think tank. “Food security [is] now a national security [issue] for most countries,” Ciara O’Brien of…
Egypt has long been a destination well suited to holiday goers. The country has the Mediterranean’s soft white sand beaches, the Red Sea’s aquatic life, history and culture spanning centuries from Alexandria in the far north to Aswan in the far south, and a reasonably cosmopolitan setting in major cities. That has boded well for the country in the post-COVID-19 travel craze (known as “revenge travel”). In the first half of 2023, government figures show hotel occupancy rates nationwide reached 80% compared to 65% the year before. Research by AmCham Egypt shows the high point was during the European spring…
Increasing the digitization of government and company operations continues to be of unparalleled importance. A June report from IDC InfoBrief, a technology consultancy, found 82% of those surveyed said they “must invest in digital transformation or be left behind.” Meanwhile, “49% say the ability to keep up with technological innovation compared to competitors will be one of the greatest threats to their organizations over the next 12 months.” Fearing a technological lag far outweighs rising inflation and recession risks, as only 20% of respondents said their biggest fear was rising prices. The key to digital transformation is having “data centers”…
Buying property in Egypt has always been one of the most reliable ways of increasing wealth in a handful of years. Ladislas Maurice, founder of The Wandering Investor, an investment consultancy, said in an August blog this is mainly because home prices in Egypt “generally track the [U.S. dollar] over time.” In the past 20 years, the exchange rate went from EGP 6.11 to the dollar to around EGP 30.9, with forecasts of more devaluations in the short term. The robust price growth trajectory has been due to unwavering baseline demand. Real estate services company Jones Lang LaSalle, in their…
On the inaugural day of the COP28 UN climate summit in Dubai, developing nations achieved a significant milestone with the approval of a new loss and damage fund dedicated to aiding the poorest and most vulnerable countries in coping with the irreversible impacts of climate disasters. The decision garnered a standing ovation from delegates, marking a moment of celebration. The UAE, as the host country, and Germany have jointly committed $100 million each to the startup fund to address loss and damage. This fund aims to address the escalating costs resulting from extreme weather events and gradual disasters like sea…
Recycling and repurposing waste has a long and storied history. Allison Emmerson, an academic working on the Pompeii I.14 excavation project, told The Guardian in April 2020, “We found that part of [the city of Pompeii, destroyed in 79 A.D.] was built out of trash. The piles outside the walls weren’t material that’s been dumped to get rid of it. They’re outside the walls being collected and sorted to be resold inside the walls.” Today, recycling is critical to limiting global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate…
This interview appeared in our November 2023 issue. Suez Canal Economic Zone Chairman Waleid Gamal El-Dien, talks about hydrogen projects that would allow Egypt to become a regional hub in a one-on-one interview with Business Monthly. All replies were edited for length and clarity. What are your plans to make the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZONE) environmentally friendly? We are determined to attract companies and projects committed to the conservation of natural resources, pollution reduction, and other environmentally conscious business practices. Companies are obliged to conduct an environmental and social impact assessment before acquiring their permits, thus ensuring investments coming…
For pundits, summer was a teaser of what could happen if the world doesn’t limit the average global temperature increase to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of pre-industrial levels. According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, an EU monitoring body, about a third of the days this year saw average global temperatures cross that threshold. Unusual rainfall patterns resulted in severe droughts, causing massive forest fires, while flash floods in other places decimated communities. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the number of climate disasters exceeding $1 billion in damage increased by nearly 28% in…
When it comes to untapped investment potential in Africa, nothing compares to investing in clean and green energy generated from environmentally friendly sources. As UN Secretary-General Antόnio Guterres told the African Climate Summit in September: “Renewable energy could be the African miracle.” “A clean energy transition across the world’s developing nations will be crucial to keep alive the Paris Agreement goal [announced in 2015] of capping global warming ‘well below’ two degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times, and 1.5C if possible,” said Guterres. Achieving that will require a lot of money. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), in the next…