Egypt's Housing Minister Assam El-Gazzar announced that 60 floors of the 78-floor Iconic Tower in the Central Business District (CBD) in Egypt's New Administrative Capital have been constructed so far, a statement by the ministry said on Wednesday.

Once finished, the almost 400-metre-high Iconic Tower will be the tallest building in Africa, El-Gazzar said.

Work on the tower officially began in May 2018 with the digging of the land for the tower, while construction of the building itself started in February 2019.

The CBD, which will be home to 20 towers, is being built in cooperation between the Ministry of Housing, represented by the New Urban Communities Authority, and the China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC), one of the largest construction companies in the world.

El-Gazzar explained in Wednesday's statement that the investments in the CBD project are estimated at $3 billion.

In an earlier statement, El-Gazzar said "the CBD project is one of the largest projects undertaken by the Egyptian Ministry of Housing and Urban Communities, which would be a milestone for Egypt-China cooperation and a starting point for many cooperation projects between the two countries."

The 700-square-kilometre New Administrative Capital, located 60km from Cairo in the area between the Cairo-Suez and Cairo-Ain Sokhna roads, was launched in 2015 by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and is set to house 6.5 million people.

The government had planned to relocate ministries and 52,300 government employees to the new capital by mid-2020, but the coronavirus pandemic forced it to delay the move till mid-2021. In April, El-Sisi instructed the government to reschedule the inauguration of all national mega-projects planned for last year, including the new capital and the Grand Egyptian Museum.

On 8 February, the housing ministry signed an agreement via video conference with the CSCEC, which has been working in Egypt for more than 30 years, to build Egypt’s New Alamein Downtown Towers Project.

According to a statement by CSCEC, the Alamein Downtown Towers Project includes one high-rise apartment building of about 300 metres and four high-rise apartment buildings of about 200 metres, in addition to commercial district facilities, with a total construction area of about 1.1 million square metres.

The New Alamein and the New Administrative Capital cities are two of 14 Fourth Generation Cities that are being constructed in Egypt.

According to the Ministry of Housing, such smart cities will be serviced electronically, in line with Egypt’s Vision 2030. Sustainable development standards are being applied in their construction: renewable and recyclable materials are being used, reducing energy consumption and waste and protecting the environment.

“Building fourth generation cities is not a luxury but is essential to help disperse the large population and double the country’s inhabitable area instead of overcrowding the Nile Valley and Delta,” Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said earlier.