Dubai's largest listed construction firm, Arabtec, hopes to begin the construction of one million housing units in Egypt before the end of the year.

Arabtec has conducted "intensive negotiations and meetings" during the past period with Egyptian officials for the project to begin before the end of 2014, the company said in a press release to the Dubai Financial Market on Wednesday.

"The company is making the maximum possible effort, in cooperation with the Ministry of Housing and New Urban Communities Authority in Egypt, to begin the construction of phase one of the project before the end of the current year."

In March, Arabtec agreed with the Egyptian army to build one million houses in a project worth LE280 billion ($40 billion).

The project is planned to cover 160 million square meters on land provided free by the armed forces across 13 sites in Egypt for lower income individuals.

Work on the project was originally scheduled to start in the third quarter of 2014 and to be completed before 2020, but delivery of units will start in 2017.

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