Feature: Countdown ticking for inauguration of Egypt's New Suez Canal

It looks like a beehive at Egypt's new waterway extending from Port Said at the Mediterranean Sea to Suez at the Red Sea, passing through Ismailia.

Some 4,300 tractors, bulldozers, drillers, trucks and other equipment is working restlessly along its two banks, while about 40 dredgers are operating nonstop to meet the deadline.

The countdown is ticking for Egypt's opening of its "New Suez Canal," a national project that includes a newly-dug 35-km waterway alongside the original 190-km Suez Canal, plus a 37-km expansion and deepening of some parts of the original one.

It is scheduled to be inaugurated on Aug. 6 as per the instruction by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi on the same day last year.

"Only 54 days are left for the opening ceremony of this mega economic project," Mohab Memish, chairman of the Suez Canal Authority (SCA), told reporters on Saturday during a press briefing at the SCA headquarters in Ismailia city. He noted that the dry digging of the new waterway has been done and the dredging works will be completed by mid-July.

Parallel to the original Suez Canal, the New Suez Canal is expected to help revive Egypt's ailing economy by increasing annual ship traffic revenues from 5.3 billion U.S. dollars in 2015 to 13.2 billion by 2023, luring huge foreign investments and creating thousands of job opportunities.

"We have finished 85 percent of the dredging works and the rest will be completed by July 15, as our target was dredging of 258 million cubic meters during one year and we have already done 219 million cubic meters of them," chief engineer Wagdy Zaki, manager of dredging work at the Suez Canal Authority, told Xinhua in Ismailia.

The chief engineer added that the dredging work done in Egypt over the past ten months would normally take from three to four years, and that the authority brought 75 percent of the dredges around the world to get the project done in a year.

Taking a tour onboard a ship at the new waterway and seeing the workers and their equipment on its banks, Ahmed Abdel-Moneim, with the SCA public relations, told Xinhua that the small water passage the ship was crossing, which connects the new and old canals, was just a desert ten months ago.

"These two hills we are navigating in-between were one block ten months ago, but due to the day-and-night work, it was dug this way to connect the two canals and to provide services between them," Abdel-Moneim explained.

"WELCOME TO SAFE EGYPT AND ITS SECURE CANAL," reads a sign at one of the anchorages of the Suez Canal, which is meant to reassure visitors and passing ships that the country is currently enjoying more security and stability, unlike the past chaotic four years that saw the ouster of two Egyptian heads of state.

After a tour in the new and old Suez canals, at a club belonging to the SCA in Ismailia, security officials confirmed that the strategic area is highly secured by both the police and the armed forces, whether by land, sea or air forces.

"We have a department called Navigation Passage Security, whose duty is to secure ships during their passage, whether from the north or the south, which has become a daily mechanism for us where every member knows his duty in the security plan," General Gomaa Tawfik, Ismailia Assistant Security Chief, told Xinhua.

The senior security official noted that the armed forces secure the eastern and western banks, while the police and their departments and increased personnel share the security of the western bank in particular.

General Tawfik said that the inauguration ceremony schedule for Aug. 6 will be done amid the highest security alert, as it will be attended by several heads of states and renowned international figures invited by President Sisi to witness the event that he described as "a gift to the world."

After winning a tender, the inauguration ceremony and the global media campaigns for promoting the New Suez Canal will be done by a consortium comprising WPP, one of the world's largest marketing firms, and a number of other corporations including Memac Ogilvy Public Relations, Media Waves, Emeco Travel, JWT, Richard Attias and Mindshare.

"We are proud that Media Waves is the only Egyptian company which won the bid for the inauguration ceremony," said the company's managing director Nagwa Emad, noting that being part of the consortium is the greatest achievement of the history of her firm.

"We feel we are part of the history of Egypt. My team and I are so enthusiastic and we feel honored to be part of this great success," the lady told Xinhua. Endit