Egypt ended negotiations with China Fortune Land Development Co. Ltd. for the US$20 billion development of a new administrative capital in the country over disagreements on profit sharing, Bloomberg News reported, citing Egyptian officials.

The parties were planning to build the project on a 15,000-acre site in Cairo's east over 25 years, according to the news agency.

The talks for the development commenced in June 2016 with a memorandum of understanding signed in October of the same year. The first phase of the project aimed at easing pressure on Cairo was scheduled to be completed by mid-2019, Bloomberg added.

Ahmed Zaki Abdeen, who heads the company established to oversee the project, told Bloomberg that the discussions have stopped after the Shanghai-listed developer did not reply to the authorities' response to China Fortune Land's final proposal. Khaled Elhusseiny, a spokesperson for the created company, added that Egypt wanted 40% of the project's revenue when China Fortune Land was offering only 33%.

China Fortune Land's international arm declined to comment on the deal's termination, and the company's officials in Egypt did not respond to requests for comment, the Dec. 17 report added.

Khaled Abbas, Egypt's deputy minister for housing and urban communities, was cited by the news agency as saying in a phone interview that the country's officials will still work with the Chinese real estate company on another development despite the ended discussions over the planned project.