President Sisi establishes economic zone around Egypt’s Suez Canal: MENA

Egypt’s Ambassador to Namibia, Mahmoud Fawzy Abou Dounya, who held a small reception at the Egyptian Embassy in Windhoek, said the extension would create “a new canal parallel to the existing Suez Canal and double the waterway to facilitate traffic in two directions”.

The Egyptian embassies overseas celebrated on Sunday 9/8/2015 the inauguration of the New Suez Canal that took place on Thursday. He also congratulated his Egyptian counterpart Eng Hany Dahy on the completion of the project in record time of 11 months. The construction of the new waterway, which runs alongside most of the existing canal, began less than a year ago.

This is besides the analysis that the expansion of the Panama Canal, due to be completed next year, will compete with Suez for traffic along the Asia-North America route.

Banks and many businesses were closed as government had declared Thursday a national holiday.

A new channel of the Suez Canal was officially opened earlier in the day during a ceremony attracting a number of high-ranking officials from across the globe.

Cairo’s streets were adorned with billboards and flags praising el-Sisi and celebrating “Egypt’s gift to the world”. Insurgents have killed hundreds of civilians since a military coup ousted President Mohammed Morsi in 2013.

The project is being trumpeted as the basis of an economic turnaround for the country.

But some are sceptical of the official numbers and suggest that sluggish world trade makes it unlikely the project can deliver immediately on its promise.

The plan includes projects in the refining and petrochemicals fields south of the Suez Canal.

In 1956, then-President Gamal Abdel-Nasser nationalized the canal from the British and French companies that owned it, a moment cherished by Egyptians as a defiant break from imperialist control.