Suez Canal is a channel for growth in Egypt

If one wants an example of Egypt’s indomitable spirit, one need look no further than the Suez Canal Project.
The story goes that the notion of a man-made canal linking the Nile to the Red Sea originated with Egyptian Pharaoh Senausert III but early efforts silted up.

Napoleon also considered the idea of connecting the Mediterranean to the Red Sea but, because his engineers miscalculated a difference between the two sea levels, they gave up on it.

Credit for the waterway therefore went to French diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps with the 164km Suez Canal constructed between 1859 and 1869 under miserable conditions and with a workforce of more than 1-million over the period, and with thousands of deaths due mainly to disease.

The canal has been at the heart of a number of international disputes and has been closed for periods of time: first during the Suez Crisis of 1956 and again during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, when it was made impassable with scuttled ships.

It was reopened in 1975 after the Camp David Accord, which returned the Sinai to Egypt.

As ships developed and increased in size, thoughts of the Suez Canal Authority (SCA), the Egyptian state-owned authority which owns and operates the canal, turned to increasing its size with the aim of shortening transit times, increasing shipping and bringing in additional revenue.

Speaking to an African media delegation on a recent visit to Egypt as guests of the Egyptian Agency of Partnership for Development, Vice- Admiral Osama Rabie, the SCA’s chairperson, explained how Egyptians rallied behind the New Suez project.

Financing was needed but President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi did not want to borrow the money internationally, so Egyptians were offered bonds.

The response was extraordinary, with $8.5billion raised in days.

Another feat was the record-breaking dredging operation which meant that the time to build the new canal, estimated to be three years, was shortened to just one year.

The project included building a new canal which is 72km long, 400m wide and 24m deep that runs parallel to the original one and widening parts of the existing canal to facilitate traffic flow in both directions.

The impact is to:

Minimise waiting time and shorten transit time for the southbound convoy from 18 hours to 11 hours

Increase the number of ships to up to 45 a day, or close to one quarter of the total vessel exchanges worldwide

Increase the size and type of ships which can use the canal up to 244 000 tons and including passenger cruise ships

Increase the cargo passing through the canal to 1.2 billion tons in 2019

Bring in $5.8billion to the Egyptian economy;

Provide jobs and training opportunities.

The project goes side by side with the Suez Canal Area Development Project and makes the Suez the route of choice for ship owners worldwide.

A simulator is used to help teach pilots how to navigate the canal, regardless of weather conditions.

Economic activity in the area includes shipbuilding, a global logistics hub, an aqua culture project, and new urban developments of cities such as Ismailia, floating bridges and tunnels beneath the canal which speed up road traffic. Val Boje
Source: Pretoria News