Egypt has opened Thursday an expansion to the Suez Canal to great fanfare, the centrepiece of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's plans to revitalise the country's economy. It has taken just one year to complete this extension and the military government hopes it will bring billions of dollars into the depressed economy. The opening of the canal will be with dignitaries including French President Francois Hollande expected to attend a lavish party marking an occasion that's been hyped by Egypt's government for months. Cairo's streets are adorned with billboards and flags praising Egypt's leader Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and the people who dug its "new Suez Canal." North Korean deputy leader Kim Yong Nam is also turning up for the celebrations, which have an estimated price tag of $30 million. "Egypt is a great civilization with very few modern achievements," said Samuel Tadros, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Hudson Institute told Bloomberg. "El-Sisi understands this hunger among the Egyptian people for success in the world, and he's giving it to them." Egyptians snapped up 64 billion Egyptian pounds ($8.2 billion) of 5-year investment certificates issued to fund the project within days. Newspapers pointed out similarities with the 1956 nationalization of Suez to use revenue to build the Aswan Dam after the government failed to secure foreign funding. Some analysts and economists say, however, the mega-project may fail to meet the great expectations. The expansion was announced by Sisi a year ago and billed as a major national accomplishment on a par with President Gamal Abdel Nasser's nationalisation of the Suez Canal in 1956 and the building of the Aswan Dam. The estimated US$8.2 billion project includes a 35-km parallel waterway flanking the existing 145-year old waterway, which links Asia and Europe. It also includes a deepening and widening of 37 km of the existing canal. This will cut transit times for southbound ships by seven hours and allow larger vessels easier passage. The Suez Canal Authority expects a windfall of additional revenue -- $13.23 billion in annual revenue by 2023 from $5.3 billion in 2014, with the number of daily vessels rising from 49 to 97 over the same period. But some are skeptical of the official numbers and suggest that sluggish world trade make it unlikely the project can deliver immediately on its promise. Ahmed Kamaly, an economist with the American University in Cairo, said the projections were "wishful thinking". "There was no viability study done, or known of, to assess the viability of the project," he said. For the project to reach its revenue targets world trade would have to grow by 9 percent annually until 2023, said William Jackson of Capital Economics, higher than the 3 percent average seen over the past four years. Since 2011, Suez Canal revenue growth has failed to even keep pace with growth in world trade. While global trade volumes rose by an average of 2.9 percent from 2011-2014, Suez Canal revenue rose by just 2 percent during the same period, Jackson said. There could be further risk from a Panama Canal expansion set to be completed in 2016 which could steal traffic from the Asia-North America route the two canals compete for, said Michael Frodl, of U.S.-based consultancy C-Level Global Risks. SUPPORT THE PROJECT Authorities have been in overdrive to sell the project to Egyptians and the world. On the streets of Cairo, colorful flags flutter from lampposts around Tahrir Square and festive lights drape the city. More than 9,000 km away, in New York's Times Square, a billboard reads "Egypt boosts the world economy". Authorities have declared Thursday a national holiday, suspended fees for public transport and have posted a sermon to be delivered in mosques on Friday which declares that "all Egyptians, here and abroad, must support this giant project". But the canal's largest client, Maersk Line, said that while the expansion would bring savings from fuel costs and by using larger vessels, it would not send more ships through the canal in 2015. "Last year we put 1,400 ships through the canal. We will put roughly the same number through this year," said Mohammad Shihab, managing director of Maersk Line Egypt. The new canal "will not change much overnight," said Nicholas Sartini, a senior vice president for the French CMA CGM Group, the world's third-largest shipping group, which sends an average of two vessels per day through the canal. Egypt is investing for the longer term to have a larger canal that can accommodate increasingly larger ships, he said. If there are any immediate benefits for the expansion, they might just be political more than economic, Kamaly said. Egypt has witnessed turbulent times since 2011 during which two presidents have been toppled. "(The canal) will unite the people around a national project that people can look upon," said Kamaly. But he questioned whether the money would have been better spent on education, health and infrastructure. Source: Reuters & Agencies
