Upgrading Cairo & Potential Private Sector Involvement

Governor of Cairo Abdel Rehim Shehata, the guest speaker at an AmCham Egypt luncheon on April 16, provided an in-depth presentation of the governorate's efforts - under multiple programs - to upgrade the city.

His lively presentation - complete with slides, graphs and full-color photos - highlighted the largely unpublicized but vital place of the private sector in these efforts. "The private sector is highly involved in the development of Cairo, but we are not making a big fuss about it," he said.

With a population of 12 million during the day and 10 million at night, Cairo's limited geographical area is under extreme pressures, the governor said. In particular, the 6700-kilometer Cairo road network has the capacity for 500,000 cars, but there are currently 1.5 million vehicles traversing the streets - a number that Shehata expects will climb to 2 million by 2007.

Shehata - who has been governor for 6 years - said the 6th of October and 15th of May highways, the Al Azhar tunnel, a planned third line for the metro and the expansion of the ring road have all helped to ease the traffic problem in recent years.

But the "serious" traffic problem is aggravated by a parking shortage. To address this, 50 to 100 more underground garages must be built, Shehata said. Private sector companies, working on a build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis, have invested £E 1.2 billion in these efforts so far, he added.

Shehata also tackled the issue of urban development. "Cairo is not the Corniche. Cairo is not Zamalek. Cairo is not Garden City," affirmed the governor, who pointed to low-income squatter settlements that have expanded around Cairo at an unprecedented rate since the 1970s.

The private sector has invested £E 4.5 billion in 32 projects to clean, upgrade and beautify different areas of Cairo, many of which were illustrated in the presentation. In Manishat Nasr, one of Cairo's poorest neighborhoods, Shehata described how £E 500 million had been spent to improve sanitation, provide drinking water, rehabilitate roads and improve human development.

In an effort to clean up the city, meanwhile, the city has contracted international companies to control solid waste management.

Following the presentation, AmCham President Mohamed Mansour thanked the governor, and presented him with an extended 2003 AmCham membership.

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