A consultant has spoken out over the restrictive political regimes currently enforced by the Egyptian government which may hinder its chances of successfully developing the Suez Canal.
Yehia Zaki, Director of Egypt Operations at global engineering firm Dar Al-Handasah, said: “If there is a chance there, you need to provide the proper enabling environment for it. You cannot have it with the current bureaucracy or the current legislation or with very poor infrastructure connections.”
Despite concerns, Reuters reported Zaki as seeming confident that the current administration was serious with regards to making mega-projects work.
Zaki said: “It varies depending on which ministry, which agency, but the aggregate of it for me as a private sector consultant is positive, is better than other interactions with Egyptian governments.”
Dar al-Handasah, with the help of its consortium, is expected to complete a plan that would see the Suez Canal transformed into an international logistics and industrial hub by March, 2015.
Zaki went on to say: “The vision is to turn this area into something totally different and capitalise on its location and what it can offer and added value.”
He added that it is hard to give an exact figure on the investment required for the project as the amount of land required to complete the canal varies as it could total 250-300km or double that size.
US$5 billion is generated in revenues by the Suez Canal every year and it provides the fastest shipping route between Europe and Asia.
Bureaucracy to Sink Suez? (Source: Community Times)
