Q&A: Mounib hammoud

Mounib Hammoud is the chief operating officer at Solidere International (SI). With SI partnering with Egypt’s Six of October Development and Investment company (SODIC) for megaprojects in Cairo’s new Eastown and Westown areas, Executive sat down with Hammoud to discuss how he’s bringing a little slice of Beirut to Egypt. What attracted you to invest in Egypt? [SODIC] came to us and we spoke together and discovered that we share the same vision and same philosophy of development. They gave us a very attractive entry deal… Egypt has 80 million people, positive growth and there is a constant improvement in the purchasing power. Their real estate market was still at its early stages. Why are you creating “urban centers” for East and West Cairo? For the past 50 years [the Egyptians] have been building cities, residential cities. Everybody gets up, gets in the car and drives to Cairo to go