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Egypt made history on Thursday, August 6, 2015 with the grand opening of its US$8 billion (5 billion pounds) new Suez Canal, which is expected to increase traffic from 50 ships a day to 97.

The day has been declared a national holiday, while Cairo’s Tahrir Square has been festooned with strings of blue and white lights, while new passport stamps trumpet the project as “Egypt’s Gift to the World. 

The project which is a symbol of "The New Egypt", will reduce the time to travel through the canal from around 18 to 22 hours to 11 hours and reduce the waiting times for vessels from the usual eight to 11 hours to three hours and increase its permissible draft to 66 feet.

The new Suez Canal is a strategic waterway for Egypt and seeks to bring in billions of dollars annually to the state and create over one billion jobs within the next 15 years. It was built in a year, instead of the projected three years.

Most part of the project, which, was funded through the sale of investment certificates to private citizens, involved widening and deepening of the original waterway and adding of a parallel canal nearly 22 miles long.

There are plans in the long term, to develop the entire region surrounding the Suez Canal and thereby turn the strategic waterway into a comprehensive global business centre which would provide maritime transport services.

These services include repairing ships, refueling, towing and rescuing, painting and cleaning ships and loading and unloading them.

The project will further see the creation of massive industrial and logistics centres, as well as centres for packing and packaging and ports will be launched at the entrances of the canal to put Egypt on the global supply chain map and thus create jobs and boost the economy.

Over 43 thousand workers have taken part in the drilling and construction of the new parallel canal, said the Suez Canal authorities, adding that there are 80 companies working as contractors in the canal, while there are also six dredging companies and a bulldozers group affiliated with the Suez Canal Authority.

Egypt’s Interior Minister, Magdi Abdul Ghaffar and Defence Minister Sedqi Sobhi have undertaken inspections in line with security preparations ahead of the inauguration.

Fireworks are expected to be held in the morning, while there will be naval and air show and live streaming on mega-screens are also expected in Egypt and also in major cities around the world.

Admiral Mohab Mameesh, retired commander-in-chief of the Egyptian navy and chairman of the state-owned Suez Canal Authority, which owns and operates the waterway said "We promised and we have delivered".

Egyptian President Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi is expected to officially inaugurate the project and various world leaders from United Kingdom, Russia, France, United Arab Emirates, Cyprus, Iraq, Togo, Equatorial Guinea, South Sudan, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan, Yemen, Algeria and Lebanon among others, are expected to attend the ceremony.

The largest and newest container ship in the world  the CMA CGM Marco Polo  sails through the Suez Canal ahead of the opening ceremony

Military prepares to secure the opening ceremony of  Egypt s New Suez Canal