Saudi Arabia, Egypt to build bridge across Red Sea

Saudi Arabia and Egypt on 8 April 2016 agreed to build a bridge over the Red Sea. The announced bridge will connect the two countries.

The planned bridge would help in boosting commerce between the two allied countries. It will also connect the two continents, Africa and Asia, and result in increasing trade between the two continents to unprecedented levels.

The announcement was made by Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz after meeting Egyptian President Abdul-Fattah al-Sisi at the President’s Ittahidiya Palace. King Salman, 80-year-old monarch, is on a five-day long visit to Egypt.

Egyptian President Abdul-Fattah al-Sisi, who earlier presented the King with the ceremonial Nile Collar, Egypt’s highest honour, said the bridge would be named after the Saudi king as King Salman bin Abdel Aziz Bridge.

A Red Sea bridge linking the two countries has been proposed several times before, but has failed to become a reality. The idea of a causeway (bridge) between the two countries had been floated since the 1980s but in the past it never crossed its planning stage.

Previous plans for the bridge's route suggested a 32-kilometre span across the Tiran Strait, at the entrance of the Red Sea Gulf of Aqaba, which would allow for a commute between the two countries in just 20 minutes.

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