King Salman Bridge to cement relations

CAIRO: Egyptian Minister of International Cooperation Sahar Nasr said the courageous decisions made during the visit of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman came as no surprise to anyone.
She called the launch of the land bridge between Egypt and the Kingdom a gift to the Egyptian people, and said the meetings of the coordination council reflected the general keenness of King Salman to make a transformation in Saudi-Egyptian relations.
She said that the outcome of this visit reflected positively on the two countries and the Arab world in general.
Economists and politicians said that the land bridge is a quantum leap in cooperation on bilateral and regional trade levels. Former interim Egyptian Prime Minister Hazem Al-Beblawi said the bridge came at a critical time and hoped it would revitalize an economy that has badly been affected by the turmoil of the past few years, leading to external intervention and the emergence of extremism and terrorism.
Secretary General for the Arab Investors Union Jamal Bayoumi said this step step will revive trade, speed up the Arab common market and contribute to a steady flow of goods between the two countries and across the region.
Former Dean of the Arab Studies Institute Ahmad Yousif said this historic launch marks the rejection of external intervention, and asserted that this visit and the subsequent achievements will be recorded in the Saudi-Egyptian history books.
Ahmad Jalal, head of the Economic Studies Center, said that the building of the bridge will solve a number of problems that served as obstacles to trade between the two countries, and will speed up the transport of goods and people, decreasing the cost and time of transport.
Defense expert Brig. Gen. Talat Muslim said the bridge will be a strategic anchor in the region's history.
The head of the Egyptian side of the Saudi Egyptian Business Council, Abdulhamid Abu Mousa, said the bridge between the Kingdom and Egypt marks a historical transformation in relations between the two countries. He said the bridge, which will be named after King Salman, is a large project that has many economic benefits in terms of commercial movement and goods transportation, in addition to creating tens of thousands of job opportunities.
Two members of the Egyptian Parliament also expressed their optimism about the bridge, saying it reflects the deep strategic and economic vision of the leaders of the two countries. Leader of the Reform and Development Party Mohammad Anwar Al-Sadat said that the bridge will bring countless economic benefits to Egypt and open the doors for investments in addition to reducing costs.