ISLAMABAD: A consortium of international and national companies on Friday announced to launch a $2 billion real estate project that will not only bring foreign investment but will also provide employment to 20,000 people in Pakistan.

The $2 billion “Eighteen Islamabad” project will be established on 2.77 million square yards near the New Islamabad International Airport.

The consortium is mainly eying overseas Pakistanis as it will offer the purchasers completely furnished houses.

The project’s chief executive officer, Tarek Hamdy, at a presentation said the design of the project had been finalised and its highest quality of construction would set new standards for the real estate in the country. There will be 900 villas from 10 marla to eight kanals, 900 apartments of different sizes and farmhouses.

“There will be an 18-hole golf course, clubs, sports complex, hospital, five-star hotel, shopping malls, walking and cycling tracks and many other facilities. The project will formally be launched on January 18, 2018, and its first phase will be completed within three and a half years. The project will be fully completed in six years,” he said.

In reply to questions, he said rainwater would be used for the project and as the area received sufficient rains there would be no scarcity of water.

Naguib Sawiris from Egypt, who is a former shareholder in Mobilink, said after doing business in the telecom sector for 20 years he had decided to switch to the real estate. He claimed that a number of new projects would be launched in different cities across the country.

Co-chair of Saif Group, Mr Anwar Saifullah, who is one of the local partners, said the process to acquire land for the project had started in 2004 in Sector H-17. However, later the then CDA chairman Kamran Lashari announced that Islamabad’s boundary would end at Sector 16s. So currently the land is located in the limits of the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) and a no-objection certificate (NOC) has been obtained from the RDA.

“Moreover, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has also issued an NOC for the project. It took 12 years to make the land compact and we had to pay 10 to 15 times more to some of the land owners to make it compact. Currently, there is a shortage of seven million housing units in the country and such projects should be started to address the issue of housing and create employment opportunities,” he said.

Published in Dawn, December 23rd, 2017