Buoyed by a growing local economy and its strategic location as a gateway to Africa and the Middle East market, Cairo is becoming a pre-eminent regional real estate market for local, regional and international investors and occupiers, with a renewed focus on diversification and affordable housing over the next five years. “Cairo is becoming an international real estate market and is emerging on the radar screen of an increasing number of regional and global developers, investors and occupiers,” said Thierry Loué, CEO of Jones Lang LaSalle MENA. “The key markets in Cairo are driven by ‘end user' demand rather than speculative development. As the Cairo market is largely cash driven, it has experienced much lower levels of debt that in many other cities in the region. It is therefore more stable with greater prospects for sustained growth than many of its peer cities.” Cairo remains a market with more demand than supply for new, high quality retail development and is significantly under-served as compared with competing markets for modern, professionally managed retail offerings. Jones Lang LaSalle's said in a new report titled “Cairo City Profile” that “the city is growing rapidly from its constrained historic core to a range of new self-sustaining cities on the urban periphery.” “Cairo is a global city with a tremendous future - that is why we are opening our office here in early 2010,” Loué noted, saying that “more than any other regional city, Cairo is characterized by a combination of mature and emerging market conditions.” “Over the past five years we have conducted a number of strategic real estate assignments in Egypt for many of the leading local and regional organizations that are directly responsible for the transformation of greater Cairo in the past decade. In recent years, working with our global occupier clients, those Fortune 500 companies active in Cairo, we have gained a unique insight into the importance global organizations place in having a strong presence in Cairo to service their regional markets, especially those in the emerging African continent” said Loué. Along with Dubai, Cairo features as the MENA region's favorite destination for major global corporates. The large number of Fortune 500 companies present in the city serves as a key indicator of both the recent liberalization of the economy and the potential of the increasingly affluent local population.
