World News for Students of English

11-08-2015 15:00

The Suez Canal – it earns Egypt around 5 billion US dollars a year. The country has said the new Suez Canal is now finished and should increase revenues by 2023 to 15 billion dollars. The project is seen as a symbol of national pride by President el-Sisi and a chance to stimulate the economy.

The expansion adds an additional lane along part of the shipping canal which officials say will shorten waiting times, reducing navigation time for ships from 22 to 11 hours. It includes 21 miles of channels cut through the desert and a further 22 miles where existing bodies of water were dredged to make way for larger ships.

The government also plans to build an international industrial and logistics hub near the Suez Canal that it expects will eventually make up about a third of the Egyptian economy.

The Egyptian government hired six international firms to dig new sections of the canal and dredge the existing waterways to complete the project in a year. The new waterway will be officially unveiled on the 6th of August.

Difficult words: revenue (income), stimulate (to grow), channel (a waterway), dredge (to clear the bed of an area of water), hub (the effective centre of an activity or place), unveil (to show something to the public for the first time).

Source: www.ondemandnews.com