Kamal al-Waziri, Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces’ Engineering Division, met on Wednesday with Arab and foreign military attaches visiting the site of the new Suez Canal. “We welcome you to Egypt's national project,” he told them.
He said the dredging of the new canal will begin on Saturday while the casing of its banks will start mid-September.
“The drillers are given three different sections so that they all finish together and on time,” he explained.
He said the parallel canal and the deepening of the current channel are the most important parts of the work, adding that studies are underway for other services on the banks of the new canal.
Other projects include the development of the ports of Port Said and Sokhna, a new port in Arish, an industrial zone east of Kantara, the Valley of Technology and four tunnels of which two would be opened by the end of next year.
“We will begin immediately with three tunnels in South Port Said and another three in North Ismailia to connect the Delta with Sinai,” he explained. “The Suez Canal is important to the whole world and not just Egypt.”
He also said that work that started on 6 August included digging a 35-kilometer parallel channel, deepening seven kilometers in Balah and Deversoir, drilling four channels to connect the old and the new canal, building five residential and tourist areas, yachting ports and logistical ports and building fish ponds for the sedimentation basins of the canal.
“We assigned the job to 54 Egyptian companies and two military battalions,” he said, adding that the new channel is 340 meters wide and 24 meters deep so as to allow the passage of large ships.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
