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Egypt Climbs 49 Spots and Ranks 64th Globally for Issuing Building Permits

According to a World Bank Group 2017 Doing Business report, Egypt has impressively jumped 49 spots from last year in terms of issuing building permits.

Staff Writer

Egypt’s vision of building new cities gets a boost of encouragement as the World Bank Group released a report showing Egypt jumping an impressive 49 spots, ranking as the 64th country in terms of issuing building permits according to the Doing Business in 2017 report.

The jump in rankings takes into account the procedures of issuing permits including the time, cost, and building quality control index. According to the report, it takes an average of 145 days to issue construction permits, which is worse than the MENA region average of 116.5 days, but better than the 152.1 days it takes in high-income countries that are members of the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The report also suggests that the cost of issuing permits for building a warehouse in Egypt stands at 1.6 percent of the warehouse’s value, which is estimated at approximately EGP 1.3 million. The report also identifies that the building quality control index ranges from 0 to 15, where zero is the lowest and 15 is highest, factoring in quality of building regulations, liability and insurance regimes, quality control throughout the whole process, measuring efficiency, and professional certifications indices. According to this criteria, Egypt managed to score a 12, which is higher than the MENA average of 9.9, and slightly higher than the 11.3 score that registered OECD nations received.

Before issuing a new construction law in 2007, Egypt ranked 165th, which by 2014 had jumped to the 141st spot, but drastically improved, reaching 64th in 2017. As it stands, there are still improvements to be made and, according to a member of the parliament’s Housing Committee, Mohamed Abdel Ghani, amendments are currently being discussed to improve the Unified Construction Law 119/2008 addressing problems ranging from lack of urban planning to harsher fines for violations.