Ismailia (Egypt) (AFP)

At the moment when the Suez Canal is celebrating its 150th anniversary, Egypt emphasizes the "essential" character for the country of this waterway nationalized in 1956 by Gamal Abdel Nasser and then enlarged under the impetus of the current president Abdel Fattah al-Sissi.

In an interview with AFP, Admiral Ossama Rabie, president of the Egyptian Suez Canal Authority (SCA), says that the 193-kilometer-long canal linking the Mediterranean to the Red Sea "has become essential for Egypt and other countries ".

If he recognizes that the French diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps "had the merit of putting forward the idea" of the digging of the canal, the president of the SCA ensures that the "genius" of the Egyptian people gave life to the project.

"A quarter of the Egyptians then participated in digging, about one million citizens of a population of 4.5 million at the time," said the admiral.

According to him, "between 100,000 and 120,000 Egyptians have died there", victims in particular of epidemics, estimates disputed by the experts who underline that the mortality, poorly documented, is difficult to evaluate.

The digging of the canal, "with rudimentary tools", was a "miracle", says the high ranking.

Without dwelling on history, the admiral insists on the digging in 2014-2015 of the "new Suez Canal", a parallel section dug under the impetus of President Sissi.

According to him, the Egyptians "participated for 64 billion Egyptian pounds (3.5 billion euros) in the space of eight days" to the financing of this project.

Transit time increased from 22 to 11 hours, increasing the number of ships per day from 60 to 65 on average against 40 to 45 previously, the Admiral is inexhaustible on the figures of the new channel.

- Tunnels under the canal -

This outbidding aims above all to meet the gigantism of current vessels and tonnages constantly increasing.

Today, container ships, which account for more than half of the canal's total traffic, can reach a capacity of 23,000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalents) as the standard unit of measure for counting "boxes" or containers.

And giant tankers of more than 200,000 tons now cross the canal.

The authorities also promised to develop the Sinai Peninsula, part of which borders the eastern side of the Suez Canal.

For this, says Mr. Rabie, the authorities have dug six tunnels under the canal to come and go more easily from Sinai.

"Now, access is easy for people, including investors," he says.

In addition, with the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SC Zone) in particular, the Egyptian state wants the surroundings of the waterway to be not just a transit zone, but an economic development zone.

"Many projects exist along the banks," says the admiral, citing ship supply areas, pharmaceutical factories and car assembly plants.

Finally, the former chief of staff of the Egyptian Navy wishes to emphasize that the channel "is perfectly secure" by all the armed forces.

And according to him, the operations of the army against armed groups active in northern Sinai "did not affect" the activities of the canal.

© 2019 AFP