The Suez Canal corridor project planned by a consortium led by Dar Al-Handasah will cost $220 billion over fifteen years, said Ashraf Salman, Egypt's investment minister, at the Euromoney conference in Cairo on Tuesday.
The plan is to establish development projects along a 160 km corridor of barren desert beside the international waterway, including logistics and industrial hubs.
A wider Suez Canal development plan began last month with digging a parallel waterway to increase ship traffic.
The new waterway will add at least $2-5 billion in the coming three years to the state budget, Salman said at the conference.
The digging of the new canal and underground tunnels costs $4 billion which were raised by the government through public offering of investment certificates.
"This is a pilot project that is very important in driving growth in the fiscal year 2014/15", said Salman.
