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Egypt offers Red Sea peninsula for development

By Edmund Bower
Scuba diving in the Red Sea off Egypt. The Ras Banas headland is close to the St John's coral reef system, a scuba-diving hotspot Alamy/Poelzer Wolfgang via Reuters
Scuba diving in the Red Sea off Egypt. The Ras Banas headland is close to the St John's coral reef system, a scuba-diving hotspot
  • Ras Banas extends 50km into Red Sea
  • Deal similar to Ras El Hekma
  • ‘Great tourism demand’ in region

Egypt has started promoting another sizeable Red Sea peninsula, the Ras Banas headland, to tourism developers.

Egypt’s minister of housing and urban communities Sherif El Sherbiny said on Saturday that the area is being offered in a deal similar to the Ras El Hekma scheme on the Mediterranean coast agreed in February. 

The state retained a 35 percent share of the $35 billion Ras El Hekma while ADQ, an Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, stepped in to provide the balance.

Ras Banas, 160km south of the resort city of Marsa Alam, lies along the largely untouched southern stretch of the Egyptian Red Sea coastline. It extends 50km out into the sea, close to the St John’s coral reef system, which features multiple scuba diving spots.

Attacks on shipping in the south of the Red Sea by Houthi militants based in Yemen have badly affected Egypt’s Suez Canal revenues but tourism appears largely unaffected.

El Sherbiny said that the ministry is responding to “great tourism demand” along the Red Sea. Egypt hopes to attract 30 million tourists a year by 2028, double the record 15 million visitors that arrived in 2023. It is targeting between 250,000 and 300,000 new hotel rooms as part of that effort.

In addition to Ras Banas, the government is also courting developers for Ras Gamila, a small peninsula in south Sinai that has previously been cited in plans to build 10 hotels with a total of 3,000 rooms. 

In April Asharq Bloomberg reported that Saudi Arabia’s Ajlan & Bros Holding Group was planning to develop the project at a cost of $1.5 billion, although officials since denied the reports saying “no offer for the development of Ras Gamila would be considered until an international advisory firm” presents a plan for investment.

El Sherbiny said that his ministry is also preparing to build 70,000 housing units, 60,000 of which will be low-income housing plus 10,000 medium-income units.

The minister also spoke of a new platform that will allow overseas investors to initiate and manage property investments from abroad with hard currency.

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