Earlier this week, the Prime Minister of Egypt, Mostafa Madbouly, announced in a news conference that Egypt is going to remove limits on foreign property ownership in order to attract the inflow of hard cash into the country. The restrictions in Egypt allowed foreigners to own only upto two properties in Egypt, both properties being located in different cities.
Under Law No. 230 of 1996, foreigners have a right to
purchase property in Egypt. However, until now, there were certain restrictions
on the purchase of property by foreigners. Foreigners were not allowed to
purchase more than two pieces of property, the combined area of which could not
exceed 4000 square meters, and the purpose of purchase of property should be
for a family member to reside in the property. Moreover, the properties cannot
be in the same city. Such purchase must also be approved by the Council of
Ministers, a procedure that takes almost two months. Needless to say, such
stringent regulations have been discouraging foreigners to invest in property
in Egypt for a long time now.
The Prime Minister also informed that reforms to speed
up land registration for investors would be implemented in the country,
following complaints of processing difficulties at the Supreme Council of
Investments. According to Madbouly, the council now seeks to increase
investments in private sector to bring it up to the level of state investments.
The goal is to ensure that private sector investments account for at least
60-65% of all investments in the next three years.
Madbouly remarked that the total amount of allocated
investments for 2023-24, including both private and state investments, amounted
to 1.64 trillion Egyptian pounds. In comparison to the 11.57 billion Egyptian
pounds in investments in 2005-06, the numbers have gone up significantly over
the last few years.
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