New Suez Canal opens

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi staged a lavish ceremony Thursday to unveil a "new" Suez Canal, seeking to boost the country's economy and international standing by expanding the vital waterway.

Sisi, sporting ceremonial military uniform, arrived on board an historic yacht leading a naval flotilla as fighter planes and helicopters flew overhead.

The event in the port city of Ismailiya was attended by several heads of state, including French President Francois Hollande.

Ambitious target

Sisi broke ground on the canal project last August.

Initial estimates suggested the new route would take up to three years to build, but Sisi set an ambitious target of 12 months.

It has been termed as a landmark achievement, rivalling the digging of the original 192-kilometre (119-mile) canal, which opened in 1869 after almost a decade of work.

The new section, built at a cost of $9 billion (7.9 billion euros), runs part of the way alongside the existing canal connecting the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.

"It's an achievement for the people who managed to fund it as a national project and accomplished it through perseverance and hard work," Sisi's office has said.

It involved 37 kilometres of dry digging, creating what is effectively a "second lane", and widening and deepening another 35 kilometres of the existing canal.

It will cut the waiting period for vessels from 18 hours to 11.

By 2023, the number of ships using the canal will increase to 97 per day from 49 now, according to government projections.

Officials hope the new waterway will more than double Suez earnings from $5.3 billion expected at the end of 2015 to $13.2 billion in 2023.

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