Located 32 kilometres from downtown Cairo, 6th October is one of Egypt’s newest cities. It was named to commemorate the day in 1973, when the Egyptian army crossed the Suez Canal to temporarily dislodge the Israelis from the Sinai Pensinsula.

The 400-square-km city was built as part of a government policy to relocate residents from the over-populated capital. It has seen significant investment in its infrastructure over the past decade, with $8.5bn-worth of schemes completed and a further $2.9bn of spending planned, according to regional projects tracker MEED Projects.

Schemes have included the Rod el-Farag highway, a major wastewater treatment facility and a 600MW power plant. There has been spending on housing, tourism and entertainment, with projects including New Giza, Grand Heights and Degla Palms. The city also has several universities, and there are plans to build a safari park.

UAE developer Majid Al-Futtaim’s $409m Mall of Egypt – complete with the first indoor ski slope in Africa – was opened in early March. It is expected to be an important source of income for the tourism industry. In an interview with MEED in 2016, Ahmed Ismail, CEO of Majid al-Futtaim Ventures, said he expects Ski Egypt to attract more than 1 million visitors a year.