Egyptians Celebrate Opening of New Suez Canal

The original expansion project was expected to take three years, but President El-Sissi demanded that the project be expedited.

– The Suez Canal links the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, offering the quickest shipping route between Asia and Europe and saving an estimated 15 days of journey time on average.

Egyptian authorities raised $8.5 billion for the mega-project by selling non-tradable certificates with a maturity of five years at a 12 percent interest rate to Egyptian citizens.

A number of world dignitaries attended, including French President Francois Hollande and leaders from Jordan, Kuwait, the Palestinian territories and Sudan. Ambassador Robert Beecroft and Darrell Issa, a Republican US Representative from California, attended.

Egyptians cheered on Thursday as their president unveiled a major extension of the Suez Canal aimed at resurrecting the country’s flagging economy but which has been dogged by doubts over its prospects. Yesterday, several fighter jets and helicopters flew above the ceremony while naval vessels accompanied the presidential yacht.

The nation is preparing for street celebrations to mark the event and main squares have been colourfully decorated with lights and the national flag.

Thursday’s ceremony will be partially overshadowed by a threat by an affiliate of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to kill a Croatian hostage kidnapped in Cairo last month, a grim reminder of the threat to Egypt’s stability posed by armed groups. Britain, Egypt’s former colonial power, France and Israel launched an ill-fated attack on Egypt after Nasser nationalised the canal in 1956, but were forced to withdraw largely due to U.S. and Soviet pressure.

Mr Sisi has promised Egyptians that this is the answer and called the Canal Egypt’s gift to the world.

Meanwhile, Egyptian authorities declared Thursday a national holiday, suspended fees for public transport and posted a sermon to be delivered in mosques on Friday stating that “all Egyptians, here and overseas, must support this giant project”.

“I think it would be good to have more infrastructure spending across the country as well, to get people back to work near where they live, so that people can see changes in their environment – not just far away”. “This is for the whole world”, said 50-year-old Gamal Amin.

“There isn’t anything new to be celebrating”.

In addition to expanding the canal, the government has ambitious plans to develop a massive industrial and transportation hub nearby that would create jobs and boost an economy ravaged by years of political unrest. To the east of the canal, a long-running insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula has intensified since the military overthrow of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in 2013.

The government says the project, funded entirely by Egyptian investors, will more than double the canal’s annual revenue to $13.2 billion by 2023, injecting much-needed foreign currency into an economy that has struggled to recover from the 2011 uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak and the years of turmoil that followed.

Meanwhile, economic experts are optimistic about Egypt’s New Suez Canal project.

“The government’s projections appear to be based on implausibly optimistic assumptions about world trade and we think the actual benefits are likely to be smaller than the authorities seem to be hoping for”, said William Jackson of Capital Economics.