Photo taken on March 18, 2018 shows Mostafa Madbouli attending a press conference in Cairo, Egypt. Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi on Thursday assigned Housing Minister Mostafa Madbouli to form a new government, official Al-Ahram news website reported. (Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa)
CAIRO, June 7 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi on Thursday assigned Housing Minister Mostafa Madbouli to form a new government, an appointment which makes Madbouli Egypt's de facto new prime minister.
Egypt's cabinet, including former Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, resigned on Tuesday in a step that should come at the start of a new presidential term.
President Sisi was sworn in on Saturday for a second four-year term in office that will end in 2022.
Madbouli, a 52-year-old architect and urban designer, has been the housing minister since March 2014.
He was assigned as the acting premier during Ismail's trip to Germany for medical treatment last year.
Madbouli told reporters on Thursday he is working hard to ensure a seamless transition during his role and the continuation of Ismail's work.
Madbouli served as director of the United Nations' HABITAT Regional Office for Arab States from 2012 until 2014.
Graduated from Cairo University's Faculty of Engineering in 1988, he acquired his master degree in urban planning from Cairo University in 1992.
Married with three children, Madbouli, finished his Ph.D. studies in Germany also in urban planning.
He joined several training courses in the Harvard University in the United States, South Korea's Seoul University and Netherlands Institute for Space Research from 2001-2003.
From 2008-2009, while heading the state-run General Organization for Urban Planning (GOUP), he worked on the strategic planning project of 4,410 villages.
Under his leadership, the GOUP has implemented the national strategic planning for urban communities' development across Egypt to contain the population increase and for expanding residential areas outside the narrow Delta areas.
Madbouli's ministry has been moving ahead on a new capital city 50 km east of Cairo, a project designed to deliver 240,000 new housing units over the next five years.
According to the ministry, 150,000 apartments for low-income people have already been delivered in the new capital and another 260,000 are under construction.
Madbouli told the third Egypt Investment Forum in February that Egypt seeks to increase the size of urban areas to 12 percent of its territory by 2050 to absorb the growing population.
He stressed that Egypt has unprecedented opportunities in the urban development field.
As the country's population is approaching 100 million, Madbouli said Egypt is considered a large market in the fields of real estate and urban development in light of the newly expanded networks of roads and utilities.
He estimated investments with private sector developers in urban and real estate projects at 350 billion Egyptian pounds in 2018.
