ABU DHABI (Reuters) – Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris said his country’s mega-projects should be reconsidered to save money as they require a lot of foreign currency.
“I will be polite and I would say we have an overambitious president who is doing mega projects that are requiring a lot of foreign currency and we should have a second look at these projects,” Sawiris said at a conference in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday.
Since Abdel Fattah al-Sisi became president in 2014, Egypt has embarked on an infrastructure splurge spearheaded by the military, which he says is essential for economic development and includes a $58 billion new capital city.
Last year, 1,500 Egyptian companies moved their headquarters to Abu Dhabi, Sawiris said. He added that UAE stock exchanges should unite to encourage firms to list in the region and improve liquidity.
The UAE has three stock exchanges: the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, Dubai Financial Market and Nasdaq Dubai.
(Reporting by Hadeel Al Sayegh and Federico Maccioni; writing by Abinaya Vijayaraghavan; editing by Christina Fincher)
