File Photo: Tourists visit the Karnak Temple Complex, Luxor, Egyp. AFP
This aligns with the government's plan to build more hotel rooms in FY2026/2027 to promote production sectors.
The initiative covers the following aspects.
- The amount of credit supplied to each company will be given based on its size and the organizing banking rules. The credit maximum limit should not exceed EGP 1-2 billion per client and associated entities.
- The financing will be performed through a maximum of two banks under the initiative.
- The value of the initiative, a maximum of EGP 50 billion, will be allocated to companies involved in the tourism sector on the condition that they acquire prior approval from the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities to build and operate new hotel rooms, including expansions in current projects and acquisition of a closed building to transform it into a hospitality establishment.
- It also offers the opportunity to complete any establishments, facilities, or finishes for the same building within the initiative and on the condition that the building has not acquired a hotel-running license before.
- The financed rooms should be within the following areas, arranged according to priority: Luxor, Aswan, Greater Cairo, Red Sea, South Sinai's Sharm El-Sheikh, Taba sector, Nuiba, and Dahab.
- Application for benefiting from the initiative will start within a month from its launch and continue for 12 months.
- The withdrawal period of the allocated loan must be maximally 16 months from the first withdrawal's date. The maximum ending date for withdrawals is 30 June 2026, with a six-month grace period from the ending date to acquire an operating license whether final or temporary to guarantee speeding up operations and putting hotel rooms in service.
- Beneficiaries from this initiative will receive a descending interest rate of 12 percent, with the Ministry of Finance bearing the difference in the interest rate at the Central Bank of Egypt's (CBE) rate for credit and discount rate (+1-12 percent), which is also decreasing.
- Companies benefiting from this initiative will incur the difference in interest rates and discounts in case of an increase from the current rate at launching the initiative. The conditions for terminating any client from the initiative and changing interest rates have been set.
- Clients are not allowed to use financing from this initiative to serve other debts mandated by the banking sector.
- The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities targets 30 million tourists by 2028. To achieve this goal, 240,000-250,000 hotel rooms should be added to cover this targeted rise.
- Investment in building new hotel rooms will promote the economy, as every 15,000 rooms achieve revenues valued at about EGP 1-2 billion as added value tax, in addition to other types of taxes.
- This also offers around 45,000 direct and indirect job opportunities when these rooms start to operate.
In November 2022, the CBE issued a circular that hands off the responsibility of managing low-interest rate initiatives, previously issued by banks, to the finance ministry. This aligns with Egypt's commitments under the International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan to boost its revenues.
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