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E L I T E 14

International Experiences for

Moving and Shifting Capital

Cities

By: Mohamed Baghdadi, PhD Researcher

There are many causes and varies between politics and economics in an expanded conference; to form a new smart city in Egypt; and
to create many opportunities for housing and work and to provide a
and the most important of these reasons are: high population
distinct life to adapt to the conditions of population and civilization
density, technical and technological progress, better distribution of
growth in an electronic city that keeps pace with the progressive
wealth, traffic congestion, and climate fluctuations, usually On the
technological progress, this In addition to ensuring multiple
Asian continent, 17 countries have witnessed a change in their
strategic economic opportunities and an excellent quality of life. It
capitals, including Sri Lanka. Since 1982, the country's parliament
was the first time in Egypt since 1978 that President Sadat was the
has been meeting in Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, while some
owner of the idea of establishing a new capital, as a solution to the
government departments are still operating in Colombo. Malaysia,
issue of overpopulation. The country has reached, and the city of
which transferred its administrative duties to Putrajaya in the year
Sadat has been chosen to make it a new administrative capital. This
1999 AD, but the capital is still Kuala Lumpur. Tehran is the current
project cost approximately 25 million pounds, but the project did
capital of Iran, while Shiraz and Isfahan were the two former
not achieve the goal of its establishment due to the difficulty of
capitals of the country, so the current capital will be chosen. And
moving to Sadat City due to the difficulties of transportation and
among the Arab Asian countries that changed its capital, the
communication between it and the old capital.
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which changed its capital in 1818 AD
At the end of the year 2019 AD, the Egyptian government
from Diriyah to Riyadh. Likewise, Japan changed its capital in 1868
developed specific strategies for moving to the new capital, namely:
AD from Kyoto to Tokyo.
forming a committee in each ministry to study the transition

situation, work to train employees on electronic programs, work to
As for the European continent, Italy changed its former capital to
merge and separate some administrative units, while automating
Rome after the cities of Turin, Florence and Salerno were former
work in different ministries, and evaluate the performance of
capitals, as well as in Turkey, which turned to Ankara in 1923 AD, employees who They will be transferred, in addition to the
establishment of a digital transformation unit in every ministry,
after Istanbul was the capital. While countries such as Brazil,
other than the development of the labor management system, and
Kazakhstan, Malaysia, and Nigeria have succeeded, other
the transfer of 53,700 employees in June 2020. The government has
experiences such as Tanzania and Côte d'Ivoire have been less
also put 5 axes to automate the work in the government district
successful because the metropolis dominates the life capabilities of
through the following: digitization and archiving of government
the two countries, while several other countries, such as Iran, are
documents, specialized applications,Human development,
preparing to move their capital from Tehran due to nuclear
operational entity, common applications.
concerns, calls have accelerated To move the Moroccan capital to

the historical city of Fez and restore its consideration. Brazil is at the
In light of this framework, there are many questions that arise
head of the countries that have achieved the success of the capital's
before moving to the new capital, including: What are the main
transfer in it. When Kubitschek assumed the presidency of the
reasons why countries move their capitals? How many ministries
Brazilian state in 1956 AD, he decided to build a new capital in the
and administrative units will be transferred? What is the
middle of the country, and transfer political power from "Rio de
relationship between new and old capitals? How can we benefit
Janeiro" to "Brasilia", To be the third capital of Brazil after
from international experience in the Egyptian case?
"Salvador" was the first.
The issue of the transition of new capitals also raises many

controversies that are embodied in the issue of building human and
The Russian experience comes on top of international experiences
institutional capacities, restructuring of ministries and their
as a distinct experience, as it moved the capital from Moscow to the
relevance to the modern situation, the relations between the
city of St. Petersburg, in the year 1712 AD, then returned again to
ministries in Cairo and the new capital, and the process of
Moscow in 1918. In the year 2015 AD, the idea of establishing a
coordination between them. The administrative reasons for the shift
new administrative capital came; that project announced by the towards the new capitals in international experiences, and what is
Egyptian government the form of the relationship between the administrative capital and
the provinces.
issue 18, April 2020 #Stay_at_home