Confirming news that had earlier been leaked, Mohab Memish, chairman of the Suez Canal Authority (SCA), announced Tuesday that Egypt has chosen a consortium including the military and an Egyptian-Saudi firm for the master plan of the Suez Canal Corridor Development Project. The consortium includes both the Saudi and Egyptian branches of the Dar Al-Handasah (Shair and Partners) Group. The group was founded in 1956 and is a leading international consultancy, with offices in Beirut, Cairo, London, Pune and Amman, along with 45 regional operation offices. The Egyptian military, represented by the Armed Forces' Engineering Authority, is also part of the consortium, according to Reuters. The news agency quoted an unnamed government official two weeks ago as saying that the Dar al-Handasah consortium was likely to win as the army, in the interests of national security, intends to manage the project's infrastructure. In January, Egypt invited 14 consortia to bid for the corridor development plans. It was announced that the consortia should make their bids over a three-month period, after which the selected firms would be announced. The multi-billion-dollar project aims at developing 76,000 square km of land around the existing Suez Canal, turning it into an industrial and logistics hub. The scorridor project is a massive development plan, including construction of four new seaports in the three provinces surrounding the canal, a new industrial zone west of the Gulf of Suez, and a “technology valley” in Ismailia to host IT-related projects. Other bidders included Arab Contractors and McKinsey & Co., an international management and consulting firm.
