New Administrative Capital

The New Administrative Capital (NAC)[1][2] (Arabic: العاصمة الإدارية الجديدة‎) is a large-scale project in Egypt that has been under construction since 2015.[3] It was announced by then-Egyptian housing minister Moustafa Madbouly at the Egypt Economic Development Conference on 13 March 2015.[4] The capital city is considered one of the programs and projects for economic development, which is part of a larger initiative called Egypt Vision 2030.[5] A competition was launched on the new capital's website to choose a new name and logo for the city, noting that a jury of specialists were formed to evaluate the proposals submitted to list and determine the best among all the proposals.[6][7] Though, no official results have yet been announced by the Egyptian Government.

New Administrative Capital

العاصمة الإدارية الجديدة
City
New Administrative Capital
Coordinates: 30°01′39″N 31°45′54″E
Country Egypt
Metropolitan areaCairo Governorate
Area
 (as planned)
 • City centre5.6 km2 (2.2 sq mi)
 • Urban
714 km2 (276 sq mi)
Time zoneUTC+2 (EST)
Major airportsCapital International Airport
AbbreviationNAC
Websiteacud.eg

The new city is to be located 45 kilometers (28 miles) east of Cairo and just outside the Second Greater Cairo Ring Road, in a currently largely undeveloped area halfway to the seaport city of Suez. According to the plans, the city will become the new administrative and financial capital of Egypt, housing the main government departments and ministries, as well as foreign embassies. On 700 square kilometres (270 sq mi) total area, it would have a population of 6.5 million people, though it is estimated that the figure could rise to seven million.[8][9]

Officially, a major reason for the undertaking of the project was to relieve congestion in Cairo, which is already one of the world's most crowded cities, with the population of Greater Cairo expected to double in the next few decades.[10][11] Cairo, for comparison, has a population of nearly 20 million.

Plans

The city is planned to consist of 21 residential districts and 25 "dedicated districts". Its downtown is to have skyscrapers and a tall monuments said to resemble the Eiffel Tower and the Washington Monument. The city will also have a central park, artificial lakes, about 2,000 educational institutions, a technology and innovation park, 663 hospitals and clinics, 1,250 mosques and churches, a 90,000 seat stadium, 40,000 hotel rooms, a major theme park four times the size of Disneyland, 90 square kilometers of solar energy farms, an electric railway link with Cairo and a new international airport at the site of the Egyptian Air Force's existing Wadi al Jandali Airport.[9][10][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][3]

It will be built as a smart city. It is planned that the transfer of parliament, presidential palaces, government ministries and foreign embassies will be completed between 2020 and 2022, at a cost of USD 45 billion. A full cost and timescale for the overall project has not been disclosed.[18] The first government officials were moved into their new offices in 2019.[19]

Feedback on former experiences of capital relocation was looked at, for instance by meeting with representatives from Nur-Sultan (then Astana), which replaced Almaty as the capital city of Kazakhstan in 1997.[20]

Megaprojects

The New Administrative Capital is set to include many mega-projects, some of which will be the first of their kind in Egypt. Most of these projects are currently undergoing construction, some are planned for full completion as a part of the next phases of the capital and some have already been inaugurated.

Mosques and Cathedrals

In January 2019, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi inaugurated two large-scale cathedral and mosque.

The Nativity of Christ Cathedral

The Nativity of Christ is a mega-cathedral, the largest of its kind in Egypt and the Middle East.[21]

Al-Fattah Al-Aleem Mosque

Al-Fattah Al-Aleem is a mega-mosque, the largest of its kind in Egypt.[22]

Iconic Tower

The Iconic Tower is a skyscraper currently under construction, set to be Egypt and Africa's largest skyscraper.[23]

Oblisco Capitale

The Oblisco Capitale is a planned and approved skyscraper set to be inaugurated in 2030, once finished, it aims to be the tallest building in the world at a height of 1,000 metres (3,300 ft), in-order to surpass the world's current tallest tower, Burj Khalifa.[24]

Capital Park

The Capital Park (also known as Green River) is an urban park set extend along the entirety of the new capital representing the Nile river, it is expected to be 35 kilometres (22 mi) long, aiming to be double the size of New York's Central Park. The initial phase of the park will be of about the first 10 kilometres (6.2 mi), which is currently under construction.[25][26]

The Octagon

The Octagon (State’s Strategic Leadership Center) is Egypt's new Ministry of Defense headquarters, the complex is considered the largest of its kind in the Middle East and one of the largest in the world, much like The Pentagon in the United States of America.[27][28]

Capital International Airport

The Capital International Airport is the airport for Egypt's new capital, intended to relieve pressure on Cairo International Airport, serving Cairo and the Sphinx International Airport, near the Giza Pyramids, serving Giza.[29][30]

Transportation

A train to Cairo is being built. The line will start from Adly Mansour Station at Al Salam City on Cairo Metro Line 3, and will split into two branches at Robeiky. One will run northward, parallel to the Cairo Ring Road, to 10th of Ramadan City, and the other will go south towards the New Administrative Capital. Intermediate cities along the train’s route include Obour, Shorouk, and Mostaqbal.[31] In addition, a monorail line currently under construction will connect Giza to the new capital passing through Cairo.[32] On January 2021, Egypt signed a contract with Siemens to construct a high speed rail line that extends from the northern middeteranian city of El Alamein to Ain Sokhna city on the red sea passing through the new capital and Alexandria. The 450 km line is expected to be finished by 2023. Later phases of the 1750 km high speed network will connect the new capital with cities as far as Aswan in the south of Egypt.[33]

Construction

Speaking prior to the official announcement, Egypt's investment minister Ashraf Salman had already mentioned the possibility of a new capital being "developed, master-planned and executed by a private sector company", at no cost to the Egyptian treasury.[34] It was revealed that the city will be built by Capital City Partners, a private real estate investment firm led by Emirati businessman Mohamed Alabbar.[8]

When the project was officially announced in March 2015, it was revealed that the Egyptian military had already begun building a road from Cairo to the site of the future capital.[3]

In September 2015, Egypt cancelled the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed with the UAE's Mohamed Alabbar during the March economic summit, since they did not make any progress with the proposed plans.[35] In the same month Egypt signed a new MoU with China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC) to "study building and financing" the administrative part of the new capital, which will include ministries, government agencies and the president’s office.[36] CSCEC signed agreements with Egyptian authorities in early 2016 and in 2017 and 2018 to develop parts of the project.[37][38][39][40] Egyptian construction company Arab Contractors (in Arabic El-Mokawloon El-Arab) was called for constructing the water supply and sewage lines to the new capital.[41] The company stated that the studies needed were done in August and it is supposed that the project will take 3 months to supply the city with the main services needed in order to prepare it for the construction work.

See also

References
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  2. "Inside Egypt's new capital". Property Week. Retrieved 2020-03-13.
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  5. "Egypt Vision 2030" (PDF). arabdevelopmentportal.com.
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  11. "So why is Egypt building a new capital city right next to Cairo?". CityMetric. New Statesman. 19 March 2015. Retrieved 16 October 2016.
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  13. "Thinking big". 21 March 2015 – via The Economist.
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  17. "Wadi Al Jandali Airport code and information". airportdatabase.net.
  18. "Egyptian government reveals plans to build new capital city east of Cairo". ABC News. 14 March 2015.
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  20. (Russian) Egypt takes over the experience of Astana for transferring capital, Zakon.kz, 14 March 2016.
  21. "Egypt's Sisi opens mega-mosque and Middle East's largest cathedral in New Capital". Reuters. 6 January 2019.
  22. "Egypt opens Middle East's biggest cathedral". BBC News. 7 January 2019.
  23. "Construction Begins on Iconic Tower". The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.
  24. "Oblisco Capitale, the new administrative capital - اوبليزكو كابيتال العاصمة الادارية الجديدة". New Administrative Capital - العاصمة الادارية الجديدة (in Arabic).
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  31. https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/1/82879/Minister-reveals-accomplishment-rates-of-New-Capital-train
  32. https://constructionreviewonline.com/news/egypt/monorail-project-to-be-constructed-in-egypts-new-administrative-capital/
  33. https://raillynews.com/2021/01/siemens-signs-fast-train-agreement-with-egyptian-railways//
  34. "Egypt announces plans for new capital city amid signals of renewed Gulf ties". Jerusalem Post. 1 March 2015.
  35. "Egypt cancels MoU with UAE's AlAbbar to develop administrative capital". 7 September 2015.
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  41. "New Administrative Capital | The Arab Contractors". www.arabcont.com. Retrieved 2019-12-01.
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