Egypt has announced plans to build an artificial river, spanning 114,000 kilometres in length. The project, which is valued at 160 billion Egyptian pounds ($5.25 billion), will be the longest of its kind in the world, surpassing the Nile.
The national project, titled the ‘New Delta,’ will include two individual projects as well – ‘Egypt’s Futrue’ and the ‘South of El-Dabaa Axis’. This will help in the expansion for the cultivation of strategic crops, which will thus reduce bill imports, which worsened due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
The agricultural land to be cultivated from the Egyptian project is 2.2 million acres, and that the supply of water to the river will depend on the recycling of agricultural drainage water and groundwater.
The project, which is in close proximity to airports and ports, will also reportedly open job opportunities, along with achieving food security and import substitution. However, the main objective of the project is to expand the area of agricultural land in Egypt, as Egypt is the largest importer of wheat in the world.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi also said that the New Delta project will be the largest project in Egypt’s history, and will be located along the new Rawd Al-Farag-Dabaa axis road. The project aims to provide high-quality agricultural products at reasonable prices for citizens and export the surplus abroad, which contributes to reducing imports, saving hard currency and achieving sustainable development goals in addition to providing about 10,000 direct jobs and more than 360,000 indirect jobs. Recently in March, Saudi Arabia also revealed its plans to build a ‘river’ longer than the Nile, which will be four meters deep, 11 meters wide and 12,000 kms long.
The project will use anti-corrosion pipes, with each pipe having a diameter of 2.25 metres. “The amount of effort spent to create underground rivers provides us with water in our homes, even though we are in an area that is mostly desert. It is a blessing I was born with, and from getting used to it I forgot it and took it for granted. Thank you to everyone who had a hand that we wake up and find water at home,” Al Shugairi said.
