<<Print>>Vice President Paa Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur on Thursday held separate meetings in Cairo, Egypt with President Mahamadou Issoufou of Niger and President Faure Gnassingbé of Togo.
The West African Leaders met on the sidelines of the inauguration of the new Suez Canal to discuss regional peace and security as well as the ECOWAS single monetary integration and the benefits to be derived. They also discussed new initiatives to speed up the convergence process, and the political situations in their countries, as well as measures to deal with threats to the peace and security of the sub‐region.
President Issoufou and President John Dramani Mahama are jointly mandated by ECOWAS to supervise the single currency convergence process. Vice President Amissah‐Arthur is in Cairo to participate in the inauguration ceremony of the New Suez Canal, an important maritime route which would significantly cut the travel time of vessels. Egypt is set to open a major expansion of the Suez Canal, deepening the main waterway and providing ships with a 35km (22 mile) channel parallel to it.
The expansion aims to increase the traffic handled by the canal. Egypt's government hopes the revenue would boost the economy, but analysts have questioned the projections. They pointed out that the volume of world trade has not been growing at the pace needed to deliver the sums Egypt hopes to collect. Takings from Suez could also be hit by an expansion of the Panama Canal, due to be completed next year, which would compete for traffic along the Asia-North America route.
The expansion would allow for two-way traffic along part of the route, as well as for larger vessels overall. The construction of the new lane began a year ago, on the orders of Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. The original canal, opened in 1869, currently handles seven per cent of global sea-borne trade. The waterway connects the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, providing the shortest sea link between Asia and Europe. Its nationalisation led to a brief war in 1956, pitting Egypt against the United Kingdom, France and Israel.