Egypt starts offering 6,000 units for rent in the first phase of the social housing project through the rent system, Minister Mostafa Madbouly said. The ministry seeks to solve the decades-long accumulated housing crisis with all available means, Madbouly stated while delivering 3,000 contracts for citizens within the social housing project in Suez on Sunday. The rent system was included in the social housing project after several requests were received from low-income citizens, who are unable to fulfil ownership obligations through the mortgage finance system. Within two years, the Ministry of Housing had offered about 600,000 units to low-income citizens as part of the social housing project, which will be comprised of 1m units in total. Each unit is 90 sqm and had cost 135,000 Egyptian pounds until May, when prices increased by 15% after the devaluation of the pound, bringing the residential unit price up to 154,000 pounds. In May, the Social Housing Fund's Board agreed to study how the rent system could be involved in the social housing project with specific mechanisms and rules for available units, in order to be of benefit to those most in need. Madbouly pointed out that the rent system is one of the agreed-upon procedures in the World Bank's loan programme.
