Egypt has one of the oldest and longest rail networks in the region; its first line, linking Cairo and Alexandria, was launched in 1852. It was also the first country in the Middle East and North Africa region to develop a metro system.

The Cairo Metro is run by the National Authority for Tunnels and consists of two lines that are fully operational and a third that is under construction. In May 2014, the second section of Line 3, a 7.7 kilometre stretch from Abbasia to Heliopolis, was opened. The 4.3km first section, running from Attaba to Abbasia, opened in February 2012, and the entire line is expected to be finished in October 2019. A planned 17.7km fourth line has yet to be tendered, and two further lines of 20km and 30km are expected to follow.

The Cairo Metro carries about 3 million passengers a day, but by 2020 this is expected to rise to 5 million passengers a day.

Rolling stock

In December 2014, the Egyptian government signed a $428.7m deal with France to fund the purchase of 64 trains for the Cairo Metro. The agreement involves Paris providing $214.4m as a concessional loan, which is to be repaid over 53 years. The loan will have a 20-year grace period at an annual interest rate of 0.1 per cent. The second half of the finance will come in the form of credit facilities by French credit company Coface. France has already funded much of the construction of the existing three metro lines, estimated to total $1.5bn between 1979 and 2012.

The third phase of Line 3 has yet to be awarded; bids were submitted by two contracting groups in October 2014. Line 3 has a total length of almost 43.5km, serving 36 stations, and is being built in four phases. The design work for both phase 3 and phase 4 is being carried out by France’s Systra.

Suez Canal traffic by vessel, 2014
Type of vessel
Tankers	4,053
LNG carriers	614
Bulk carriers	3,051
Combined carriers	4
General cargo	1,259
Container ships	6,129
Roll-on/roll-off ships	228
Car carriers	1,003
Passenger ships	67
Others	740
LNG=Liquefied natural gas. Source: SCA

Egyptian National Railways, part of the Transport Ministry, operates the country’s mainline network of just over 9,570km. It comprises 705 stations, of which 22 are considered main stations and 564 are classed as small, and 885 bridges and tunnels. The network links most major towns along the Nile and in the Delta region, as well as towns and ports along the Mediterranean and Red Sea coasts.

Some 500 million passengers and 6 million tonnes of cargo are transported on the rail network annually. As a result of its age, the condition of the railway is deteriorating and a number of fatal accidents have occurred in recent years, largely due to signalling failures. Some 85 per cent of signals are mechanical, and human error is the most common cause of accidents.

Most active projects are focused on rehabilitating existing track, upgrading rolling stock and renewing signalling equipment, and are financed by multilateral donors. The government has revived plans for a new high-speed railway running from Alexandria to Aswan, but has yet to mobilise the required financing.

Ports play a critical role in Egypt’s economy, thanks to the size of the domestic market and the country’s geographical position astride the Suez Canal. The most significant development of the past decade has been the emergence of Egypt as a trans-shipment centre following the inauguration of the East Port Said container terminal in 2004.

Egypt has 15 commercial ports; they are divided among four agencies reporting to the Maritime Transport Sector. These are: Alexandria Ports Authority; Damietta Ports Authority; Port Said Ports Authority; and Red Sea Ports Authority.

Port tenders

Several port authorities issued tender invitations in the first half of 2014 for expansions to be undertaken on a build-operate-transfer basis. These include: two terminals at Dikheila, west of Alexandria, one for grain handling and one for dirty bulk cargoes; a third container terminal at Alexandria; a grain and feed terminal at Damietta; a marine jetty and container terminal at Safaga, on the Red Sea; and the conversion of the petroleum jetty at El-Tor, on the Sinai coast of the Gulf of Suez, into a cargo port.

Egypt is planning to develop three transport projects under its public-private partnership law. Pre-feasibility studies were completed in May 2014 for the project to upgrade Safaga mining port on the Red Sea. The port currently has one platform for exporting crude phosphate and the plan is to turn it into an industrial port with eight platforms to receive bigger vessels, and to expand the industries it serves. The additional activities will be exporting phosphoric acid, importing and exporting grains, and importing livestock. There will also be a maintenance dock shipyard. The project received approval from the Supreme Committee for PPP Affairs in November last year and a contract is expected to be tendered in April.

A further project involves the construction of three river transport ports as part of a broader plan to develop the country’s river transport system. The locations for the ports are in Upper Egypt at Qena, Sohag and Asyut. Tender documents are expected to be ready in the fourth quarter of this year.

River buses

This year will also see another river transport PPP project launched: the Nile river bus in Greater Cairo. The existing ferries and terminals are in poor condition. Under the plan, the successful bidder will purchase, finance and operate 41 boats, redevelop the existing 16 terminals and add about 12 new terminals.

The biggest transport project currently under way in Egypt is the expansion of the Suez Canal. The waterway is an important source of income for the state budget, providing about $5bn a year.

The project involves the construction of a new 35km canal, parallel to an existing section of the waterway, and expanding the Bitter Lakes and El-Ballah bypasses in order to bring down the waiting time for transiting ships to a maximum of three hours instead of 8-11 hours. It is hoped the expansion will shorten transit time from 18 hours to 11 hours and increase the number of ships that use the waterway from 49 a day to 97 by 2023. It is also hoped that revenues generated by the Suez Canal will rise from $5.3bn at present to $13.2bn in 2023. The work is being completed at an accelerated pace of 12 months, with the deadline for completion set for August 2015. The cost is estimated at £E19bn ($2.5bn).

In October 2014, Egypt signed contracts with six international dredging firms to dig the new channel. They were: the UAE’s National Marine Dredging Company; Royal Boskalis Westminster and Van Oord, both based in the Netherlands; Belgium’s Jan de Nul Group and Deme Group; and US-based Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company.

The Egyptian government managed to raise the required funds to execute the project in just eight days, raising $8.5bn by issuing five-year investment certificates bearing an interest rate of 12 per cent.

In addition to the plans to expand the canal, a long-discussed separate scheme to develop economic and industrial zones alongside the waterway has also been revived, with a masterplan now being developed.

Lebanon’s Dar al-Handasah won the consultancy contract for the Suez Canal Regional Development Project (also known as the Suez Canal Regional Corridor), which aims to take advantage of its position as the transit point for about 10 per cent of the world’s seaborne container trade.

The masterplan involves developing a strategy for the area spanning from Port Said and Al-Arish in the north to Ain Sokhna and the Gulf of Suez in the south. The main elements include further expansion of capacity at East Port Said; the creation of a technology investment zone on the east bank of the canal, to be linked to Ismailia by a new tunnel; and an extension of the industrial zone up the west bank of the canal from Suez City.

Industries targeted

Responsibility for the development lies with the Suez Canal Authority. Potential industries targeted in the project include car components, food processing, electronics, textiles, ship building and maintenance, distribution and logistics centres, mining and pharmaceuticals.

The masterplan is due to be presented at the Egypt Economic Development Conference.

Various plans to overhaul Egypt’s road network are also in the pipeline, along with a proposal to build a development corridor along the Upper Egypt-Red Sea road.

The high-speed rail project will also be presented at the conference. It is being planned as a multi-phase scheme, with the first section, estimated to cost $3.5bn, linking Cairo to Alexandria. The line will then be extended down through Luxor to Aswan. A two-tier railway is being considered, with a double-track 180km-an-hour (km/h) electrified line at the lower level, linking all major cities on the route, and two 350km/h tracks above, which would serve five major stations at Alexandria, Giza, Asyut, Luxor, and Aswan. Other planned rail projects include a light train connecting Cairo and 6 October City and a new $2.7bn railway connecting Luxor and Hurghada.