CRI听力:Egypt's Sisi Opens New Suez Canal to Boost Economic Recovery

Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has signed an official document presented by the Suez Canal Authority to open up the new waterway.

"We promised, as Egyptians, a gift to the world and today we are fulfilling this promise in record time."

Sisi gave the go-ahead for the "New Suez Canal" project a year ago, and ordered it to be completed in just one year.

The project includes a newly-dug 35-kilometer waterway, which runs alongside the original 190-kilomter Suez Canal.

It also includes a 37-kilometer expansion and deepening of certian parts of the existing Canal.

"Within just one year we are providing the world with an additional artery for prosperity, another channel for connecting civilizations, to facilitate and enhance the movement of international maritime traffic, broaden the horizons of growth and enable the realization of the hopes and the aspirations of Egyptian people."

Inaugurating the new Canal, the former General notes the work did not take place under normal circumstances.

"Egypt did not only present this project during this year or the previous two years, to be exact. History will record that Egypt stood against and fought the most dangerous extremist ideology. If it were able to put hands on this land it would have burnt it to the ground."

Cairo has had to face an increasingly brazen insurgency in the area around the Suez Canal, which is located in the Sinai peninsula.

The insurgency by both local tribesmen and supporters of ousted former President Mohammed Morsi has left numerous soldiers and police officers dead.
　
Despite this, Egyptian authorities are promising the safety of ships through the strategic canal will not be an issue.

The new Suez Canal project is meant to double its capacity and revenues over the next 7-years.

However, some observers are suggesting the political gains for Sisi are likely to outweigh the economic ones.

Sameh Rashed is a political analyst and researcher with Egyptian daily newspaper al-Ahram.

"This is not a new Suez Canal, but it a new partial waterway, precisely it's the eighth, so there were seven previous similar projects in the Suez Canal. Also, the increase in the capacity is not only subject to the dimensions of the canal, but also subject to the increase in world maritime trade. International organizations expect that in the next ten years it won't increase much, on the contrary reports say that other waterways could draw the traffic from the Suez Canal."

The Suez Canal Authority predicts a jump in revenues from 5-billion to over 13 billion US dollars by 2022.

In the long term, it's also expected the expansion will create at least a million new job opportunities.

A number of new development projects around the canal region are also due to break ground in the near future.

For CRI, I'm Luo Wen.