In 2014, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, addressed the UN General Assembly in New York. During his speech, he announced a project with the potential to become one of the most significant in the history of Egypt and the Middle East, and one that would have an impact on the entire world.

“It is the Egyptian people’s gift to the world,” he said during the assembly. He was referring to the construction of a second waterway at the Suez Canal; the doubling of one of the world’s most important trade passages. The link between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. And more importantly, just one pillar of a development project poised to dramatically change the face of Egypt socially, politically, and economically: the Suez Canal Zone.