Coffee With Pakinam Kafafi, CEO of TAQA Arabia: Since its inception in 2006, TAQA Arabia has grown into Egypt’s premier private-sector energy and utility provider, now serving more than 1.8 mn customers. Today, the company sits at the heart of the Sahel transformation, acting as a one stop shop for utilities for many of the North Coast’s prominent developers.

We sat down for breakfast and coffee on the coast with our friend Pakinam Kafafi to talk about what it will take to build the Sahel of the future — and how we should approach the next important phase of development on our coast.

Kafafi, a former investment banker who joined TAQA Arabia when it was established in 2006 and assumed her current position as CEO in 2013, is one of 18Egyptian women named on the 2025 Forbes Middle East’s most powerful businesswomen’s list, and a leading player in Egypt’s energy sector. Here’s Paki, in her own words:

The past 3-4 years have been game-changers for Sahel in so many ways — and it was just the beginning. I believe that it is now the time to compete with Europe. It would be a shame not to, but we need to work fast and coordinate. We can’t continue to work in silos. The government, developers, infrastructure companies, utility companies and even customers have to work in tandem.

There’s no question, our side of the Mediterranean coast has the best sea and the best sand, but that is not enough. If we want to get serious about competing for international tourists, we need to start with a clear 10-year roadmap and agree on specific milestones in terms of infrastructure, healthcare, services and entertainment. The mindset and the intention is definitely there on all sides. We just need to sit at the same table and make sure we are all aligned. Once we do that, we will fly.

The roadmap starts with the government, but developers also need to coordinate with one another. The competition between the new developments should be viewed as competition for international tourists. For example, when it comes to developing marinas, developers need to keep in mind that the yachting crowd needs to be able to hop from one marina to another and find interesting entertainment and dining options. To keep things interesting, the marinas and developments should not be carbon copies of one another.

We need to make things a little easier for our international guests, present and future. Right now it is very difficult for foreigners to navigate Sahel unless they have someone local on the ground who can assist them with everything from transportation, to dining reservations, and access to the exclusive places that they see on Instagram. Developers like Emaar are now doing a good job at catering to GCC nationals, but we have to improve our overall ecosystem to make things easier for tourists.

You need smart sustainable utilities that include strong power, strong transmission and proper maintenance. The government has already undertaken a lot of expansions and upgrades for power transmission, but development is outpacing the expansion. Each developer needs to communicate their timelines, and we have to hold each other accountable. If one outpaces the other, we will definitely experience deficiencies. We also need to get serious about developing a culture of maintenance.

TAQA Arabia is ideally positioned to support current and future infrastructure development in Sahel through our energy and utility solutions. I think we are in a unique position because we work in all utilities, water, power, gas, and we are also present on the road. We have 165 stations that provide oil, gas and CNG and we now have 100 EV chargers.

In the past two years we have done really good work when it comes to water desalination in Sahel and now, we are getting into power generation as well. The infrastructure needs in Sahel are changing very quickly and we are definitely here to support it. In water desalination — RO, a water purification process that removes salts and other impurities to produce freshwater from seawater — we currently work with developers like La Vista, Mountain View, SODIC, and Tatweer Misr (the developers of Fouka Bay). For power generation, we have signed with Ora Developers’ Silver Sands project and we are in talks with many others. The potential is huge.

The Sahel season can’t remain just two months out of the year. It's all about economies of scale. We need to be running a minimum of seven months (April to October). Once that happens, we can extend even further from March to November. If we have the proper infrastructure which includes roads, utilities, healthcare, services, and entertainment, I believe that our coast can easily accommodate visitors 9-10 months out of the year.

Creating jobs for the local residents of Sahel will be key going forward. The model that we have right now, where we bring in workers from Cairo to work in Sahel for two months and then ship them back home won’t work going forward. We need to rely on local residents who live here year-round. We need to train them, involve them, and give them jobs. This will require creating high quality training centers which is what we did in Benban. The 32 developers of the Benban Solar Park in Aswan created a training center to train the local residents and now they are the ones who run the solar park. Proper training for hospitality and customer service for a resident population will make a huge difference.

If you’re looking to buy property in Sahel, there are three things you should consider. Lifestyle, choice of developer, and aftersales services. We are starting to see diverse product offerings in Sahel. We have the smaller compounds that are between 600-1k units, medium sized developments with 1k-3k units, and of course the game changer, Modon which is five times the size of Gouna. Identifying the lifestyle you want and the community that you want to live in is the starting point. Next you should choose a reliable developer with a good track record and aftersales service. If you are buying property purely as an investment, the smaller the better so you can flip it. But Egyptians generally don’t like “small.” We want five or six rooms to gather with family and friends. It’s an Egyptian cultural phenomenon and I love it.

Our beautiful coastline is our most valuable asset. I’m not an environmental expert but I believe that we shouldn’t fight mother nature. We used to laugh when people talked about global warming, we didn’t understand when the word “green” first became a thing but now, we are all witnessing 45-degree temperatures in Europe, so it’s definitely real. In general, I believe we should enjoy nature as is. Enjoy the rocky coastlines instead of trying to alter them and let the surfers embrace the waves instead of trying to control them. Leave everything as is. The environmental aspect definitely has to be taken into consideration when we create the roadmap.

We have 100 EV charging stations nationwide and we will triple that number over the next 12 months. In Sahel we have chargers inside Marassi and in our 3 stations along Alexandria-Marsa Matrouh coastal road. We will eventually have EV chargers in malls, parking garages, and roads because gas stations aren’t really the place for EV charges. We’re building all of this out based on demand.

At TAQA Arabia we approach everything we do with a client service mentality. We are the one stop shop for energy and utilities, and we are constantly looking at client needs. That includes providing our clients with finance options. Our residential clients want reliable, affordable utilities with payment plans that work for them. We already offer payment plans for CNG conversion which became a lot more expensive after devaluation. Having our own consumer finance platform is part of that equation.

My fun teenage years were spent in Agamy, but some of my best childhood memories were spent at the old Sidi Abdel Rahman Hotel (now Marassi). We used to rent the hotel’s simple sprawling villas that were directly on the sand and spent all day in the sea. I also have fond memories of Marsa Matrouh where we used to stay in hotels at Agiba and Cleopatra beaches. As an adult I started Sahel a bit late, in 2010 when my eldest daughter was just 3-weeks old.

When people say, “Sahel is too overwhelming,” I don’t agree because you can do Sahel your own way. I love waking up early and playing in the sand with my younger son. I make sure that my kids and I have lunch together several times a week, and we have our beach time at least on the weekends. I like breakfasts and brunches and others prefer late night parties. The beauty of Sahel is that there is something for everyone.

My favorite thing about Sahel is having the ability to meet friends that I don’t get to see regularly during the year. We’re all on vacation at the same time and we are in relatively close proximity to one another. I also love being able to get into the car from my office in Maadi and in three or three-and-a-half hours, I’m in a beautiful place where I get to spend three days every week and then go back to work on Sunday. Having that contrast gives me a boost. Some people complain about the commute, but I love it. Since I don’t drive myself, there’s a lot that I can get done in three hours: two Teams calls, or one and a half episodes on Netflix, or a good catch-up call with a friend — it’s perfect.

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