Infrastructure

Opening of $8bn New Suez Canal brings high hopes for Egypt

By Staff Writer

Posted on August 6, 2015

Massive infrastructure project undertaken in just one year, with canal’s annual revenues forecast to rise to $13bn by 2023

PHOTO: With massive earthworks and the dredging of millions of cubic metres of material, the infrastructure project is the largest to be completed this year in the Middle East. Credit: Mantrac Egypt

“Egypt’s gift to the world” is here – as the $8bn New Suez Canal opens today to great fanfare, and some doubts.

The new waterway was completed in just one year, rather than the three originally envisaged, under an order from Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

More than 43,000 people worked on constructing the new waterway, according to the Suez Canal Authority.

Egypt expects the investment to pay off, with the number of daily vessels forecast to almost double, from 49 to 97, by 2023 – and annual revenues to rise to over $13bn from $5.3bn last year.

The new waterway is set to be official inaugurated on Thursday, as a key part of the country’s plan for economic stability following years of turmoil.

It consists of a 35km parallel channel flanking the existing 145-year-old waterway, as well as the deepening and widening of 37km of the existing canal. Vessels will be able to travel in both directions along all 72km of the expanded route, cutting southbound crossing times from 18 to 11 hours.

Billboards in Cairo and even in New York’s Times Square are promoting the project as “Egypt’s gift to the world”.

But some are sceptical of the rosy projections of the economic boost to be given by the New Suez Canal. Ahmed Kamaly, an economist with the American University in Cairo, told Reuters the forecasts were “wishful thinking”.

“There was no viability study done, or known of, to assess the viability of the project,” the news agency reported him as saying.