Start of the official countdown to opening the New Suez Canal

The Suez Canal Authority (SCA) has begun the celebrations that will culminate in the opening of the New Suez Canal on August 6, 2015 by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.

Both the celebrations and global communications campaign will be overseen by SCA and implemented by a consortium comprising marketing communication company WPP and a number of local Egyptian businesses. Team WPP is led by Memac Ogilvy Public Relations with support from Memac Ogilvy & Mather, Media Waves, Emeco Travel, JWT, Richard Attias and Mindshare.

“The New Suez Canal project is more than 80% complete with more than 210m tons of sand excavated, so our attention is now turning to the celebration of this achievement with the Egyptian people, as well as sharing news of Egypt’s ‘gift to the world’ far and wide,” said Admiral Mohab Mameesh, SCA’s Chairman and Managing Director.