CAIRO: Saudi Arabia and Egypt have decided to launch fresh studies to build a gigantic 32-km bridge linking the two countries in a renewed bid to forge closer ties and boost bilateral trade and investment. The People's Assembly, Egypt's lower house of Parliament, debated the issue this week, and Speaker Saad al-Katatni submitted an information request to Transportation Minister Gamal Mostafa Mohamed al-Sayed about the reasons the project was halted, its location and the building costs. The bridge project will be on the top of the agenda of the Saudi-Egyptian Business Council meeting, the first in the post-Hosni Mubarak era, to be held in Jeddah next month, said an Egyptian diplomat in Riyadh on Sunday. “The bridge on the Gulf of Aqaba will become the world's longest and will take three years to complete at a cost of billions of dollars,” said the diplomat on condition of anonymity. The Gulf of Aqaba is the largest gulf located at the northern tip of the Red Sea. The diplomat said that “serious efforts” would be needed to construct the bridge, which would also serve as gateway for exports and imports among several countries of the Middle East and North Africa region. He was commenting on a report that quoted the business council's chairman Abdullah Dahlan as saying that comprehensive studies on the financial cost and technical feasibility of the project would be launched shortly and its findings submitted to officials of the two countries. The length of the bridge will be about 32 km, seven km more than the King Fahd Causeway linking the Kingdom with Bahrain. The report said motorists from either side would be able to cross over in just 22 minutes, adding that GCC investment funds and the private sector would finance the project. The bridge will link the Kingdom with Egypt via the Gulf of Aqaba from the Ras Hamid area in Saudi Arabia to Ras Nassrani near Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt, said the report. Senior travel industry expert Ramadan El-Gharib said the bridge would be an alternative route to seaways and airways for more than 1.5 million Egyptians and about 750,000 Saudis that visit each other at least once a year. “The bridge will also boost political, social and economic relations between the two countries,” said El-Gharib. The project, he said, was first mooted way back in 1984. It was again discussed in 1988 but no avail. “But, the project has been finally approved by the Egyptian side now and Abdul Aziz, chairman of the Arab Road Association, has been commissioned by Prime Minister Essam Sharaf to proceed ahead with the project and monitor its implementation,” he said, referring to the fresh interest shown by Riyadh and Cairo. On the commercial front, the project will be a boon to both countries. The two countries still enjoy close links, which should increase if the bridge is constructed. Saudi investments in Egypt total over $10 billion now, with two-way trade exceeding $3.5 billion annually. This includes Saudi exports worth $2.5 billion and Egyptian exports amounting to $1.5 billion. Saudi investments in Egypt are mainly concentrated on the oil, agriculture, tourism and real estate sectors. A number of leading Saudi companies have pumped investments into various ventures in Egypt. They include Kingdom Holding Co., Savola, Amiantit, Al-Zamil Industries, Saudi Industrial Development Company (Sadaq), Al-Babtain, Almarai and Ghassan Al-Namr Group for Gold and Jewelries. This is in addition to a large number of marriages that have been solemnized between Saudi and Egyptian families during the past several years. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/2S2NH Tags: Bridge, Egypt, Red Sea, Saudi Arabia Section: Business, Egypt, Latest News, Saudi Arabia
