Egypt & Saudi Arabia to build 30 mile bridge over the Red Sea
Egypt and Saudi Arabia have signed an agreement to build a bridge over the Red Sea from Ras Nasrani, which is close to the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to Ras Hamid in North Western Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia’s King Salman finalized the agreement on a historic five day visit to Egypt and announced the news of the new bridge after a meeting with Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
A major feat of engineering
The bridge set to be built over the Gulf of Aqaba will be a major feat of engineering as the proposed 30 mile bridge will span a large stretch that is over half a mile deep.
King Salman said “this will be one of the historic bridges of our time, between the African and the Asian contents as we look into building concrete relationships between the two countries” and “the bridge will also support international exports of both countries and will be a main passageway to those traveling to Saudi Arabia for Hajj and pilgrimage and other tourists.”
Saudi Arabia is expected to sign a US$20 billion loan to finance Egypt’s oil needs for the next five years and a further US$1.5 billion deal to develop its Sinai region while the Saudi government is planning to invest US$4 billion on the Suez Canal as well as Egypt’s energy and agriculture sectors.
Announcements will be made soon on the companies that will take over the project and the time frame that it will constructed.
