Head of Suez Canal Development Authority Ahmed Darwesh said that the development projects in the Suez Canal area will provide one million job opportunities by 2030, expecting that they will reach 2.4 million jobs by 2050.
Darwesh revealed that the authority has received 230 investment requests in the SMEs zone due to be established in El Qantara West area, which is one of the main areas in the Suez Canal development zone. This area is also prepared to establish real estate, food industry and agriculture projects.
Darwesh told Arabs Today that he received three requests to build waste-to-energy power plants which will provide energy to the Suez Canal projects however they could not launch the projects due to the shortage of waste from existing projects.
He pointed out that the authority considers collecting waste from neighboring provinces, such as Suez and Ismailia to produce energy in the area.
In regard with the start of naval services in Ain Sokhna port, Darwesh announced that the port will start providing its naval services in next June, including fuel and oil supply as well as collecting waste.
With regard to attracting investments to the region, Darwesh stressed that the attract of investment depends on several steps, most notably the regulatory procedures, noting that the cooperation protocol recently signed with the Organization for European Economic Co-operation (OECD) has a great importance for the development plans in the region, which last for six months, as the OECD has a long experience in these procedures.
Darwish stressed that the Suez Canal development Zone has attracted many investments, which exceeded expectations, especially SMEs in the last period, pointing out that about 17,000 ships crosses the canal annually.
Darwish revealed that an international conference will be held in London this week to announce the launch of navigational services in Suez Canal, where the authority will start to receive official investment offers, stressing that the authority has a high degree of transparency, therefore it will study all the offers precisely and determine the fair value in exchange for the ship supply privilege in the Suez Canal area.