Mall of Egypt open to bidders from November

The Mall of Egypt is one of many projects being developed for the city of Cairo.

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Construction firms looking for new business in the MENA region will soon be able to bid for work on an AED 2.83 billion mall planned for Egypt.

Currently in its design phase, the 160,000m2 Mall of Egypt located in Cairo will be open to tender from November this year, developer Majid Al Futtaim told Gulf News.

Commissioned to design the project, London-based architects RTKL, the firm behind Bahrain's City Centre and Mirdif City Centre, are due to finish the design by October in time for the main construction contract to go to tender a month later.

The project is set to be one of the biggest shopping centres in North Africa, with 350 stores, a 17-screen cinema complex and an indoor ski facility ‘Ski Egypt’ similar to that in the Mall of the Emirates.

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In an interview with the daily, the mall’s development director and MAF Properties senior vice president of development Richard Reid said: “It's only been in the last two years that the retail market looked quite seriously at Egypt.”

He added that he expected the project to employ as many as 7,000 Egyptian labourers through a local contractor, and the mall retailers themselves to hire “thousands of people.”

With more than 80 million people living in Egypt, and a fast growing population, the mall is targeting residents of Cairo’s growing suburbs, as well as tourists to the region.

Architectural firm BDP, one of many GCC firms currently seeking opportunities in Egypt, is extremely positive about the country’s development plans.

Speaking exclusively to Construction Week, the firm's international development director and chairman of BDP MENA David Cash said: “Although we haven’t yet done a large amount of design work in Egypt, we have identified it as an important future market.

“For us, the main focus has been the master-planning of new communities and commercial projects in general, particularly retail developments and tourism-related projects, where our perception is that the number of opportunities for quality design coming forward is increasing.”

According to Reid, Majid Al Futtaim has two new sites planned as shopping malls in Cairo at various development stages.