World leaders at the opening of the New Suez Canal – Picture by Royal Hashemite Court of Jordan.
The New Suez Canal (قناة السويس الجديدة), or rather the expansion of the old canal, was ceremoniously opened on 6 August 2015 by President Abdel Fattah El Sisi.
The enlarged capacity allows for ships to sail in both directions at the same time over much of the canal’s length. Beforehand, much of the canal was only one shipping lane wide, with limited wider basins for passing. This is expected to decrease waiting time from 11 hours to 3 hours for most ships and to increase the capacity of the Suez Canal from 49 to 97 ships a day. The construction of the new canal was initially scheduled to take five years. It was then reduced to three years, and finally ordered by President El Sisi to be completed in only one year.
42 companies were selected to work on the canal “under the supervision of the Egyptian armed forces”. Amongst them, Royal Boskalis Westminster and Van Oord, both based in The Netherlands; Jan de Nul Group (from Belgium and Luxembourg) and Deme Group from Belgium. The companies would work in five zones while engineers from the Egyptian Army work exclusively in a sixth zone.
The list of international figures attending the ceremony of the new Suez Canal project, which the Egyptian government described as a national project that shall boost the country’s economy, included Arab leaders, especially hailing from the Gulf as well as African presidents and prime ministers, along with some European delegations.
French President François Hollande was the most conspicuous delegate, and was duly designated as “Guest of Honor”. Other heads of state at hand were HM King Hamad II of Bahrain, HM King Abdullah II of Jordan, HH The Amir of Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah IV bin Ahmed Al-Jabr Al-Ali Al Sabah, Yemeni President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir or Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
The United Arab Emirates, whose National Marine Dredging Company (NMDC) was the lead company dredging and drilling the new Suez Canal, dispatched HH The Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Defence Minister, General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, as well as Dubai’s Amir, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
Saudi Deputy Crown Prince, Prince Mohamed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud attended the ceremony. Prince Mohammed bin Salman was paying his second visit to Egypt in less than a week, following the signing of the “Cairo Declaration” between the two countries, an agreement which outlines six facets of cooperation between the Arab Republic of Egypt and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev represented Russia. During a state visit to Russia in 2014, President El Sisi said that he had agreed with his Russian counterpart President Vladimir Putin to establish a Russian industrial zone as part of the project.
UK Defence Secretary Michael Fallon represented Prime Minister David Cameron.at the ceremony along with Her Britannic Majesty’s Ambassador to Egypt, John Casson. Likewise Italy dispatched Defence Minister Roberta Pinotti in the wake of rising mutual cooperation between the two countries on the Libyan crisis and on combating illegal immigration.
