Cairo (IINA) : The Egyptian government has entered into an agreement with China Fortune Land Development Company (CFLD) to develop the second phase of the country’s new administrative capital east of Cairo at an estimated cost of $20 billion, USA Today reported.

This investment comes on top of a $15 billion deal by China’s state-owned construction company to finance 14 government buildings, a zone for trade fairs and a 5,000-seat conference centre that would be the largest in Africa. The mixed-use development, covering over 57 million sq m of land, will house homes and offices and all key infrastructure. Work has already begun on a 270-sq-mile tract of land that will ultimately house five million people when the $45-billion new city gets completed in 2021, said the report.

Under the agreement signed with the ministers of housing and investment, CFDL will provide funding for the development, with the Housing Ministry providing land and the Investment Ministry securing all the required permits. The Chinese group will develop and manage 14,000 acres as part of the second phase of the new capital’s construction and draw in another $15 billion in new foreign direct investment. The Egyptian government also announced it was speaking with the Chinese about building a university there, the report added. This week, the Egyptian government also announced it was speaking with the Chinese about building a university there, the report added.