UAE offer to build port on Red Sea coast

Sudan’s Finance Minister Dr. Djibril Ibrahim announced that his country was considering a UAE offer to build a port on the Red Sea coast in Abu Ummah, 230 kilometres from Port Sudan.

During a press conference in Khartoum, Ibrahim added that the President of the Sovereign Council had formed a special committee comprising a number of governors, ministers, military, customs and others to consider the UAE offer.

The minister explained that the UAE project includes in addition to the port other projects, such as the construction of an industrial zone, a tourist area, an agricultural project in the northern Sudan Abu Hamad area with an area of 500 thousand acres and the construction of a road to link the port to the agricultural project.

He strongly denied that he had taken a decision around the port, noting that such major and strategic decisions required a State decision after consulting eastern Sudanese stakeholders.

He supported the approval of the UAE offer to possess an unavailable 740 kilometres of Sudan on the Red Sea coast, as well as the possibility for the closed countries neighbouring the Sudan to benefit those ports and the Sudan’s economy through fees.

The Red Sea areas would benefit from the port’s services, such as extending Nile water to those areas and providing thousands of jobs.