Egypt’s first electrified light rail transit (LRT) system jointly built by Chinese and Egyptian companies started its trial run on Sunday.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi took the first ride of the LRT at its inauguration ceremony, which was also attended by Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly and Chinese Ambassador to Egypt Liao Liqiang, Peoples Daily reports.
Divided into several phases, covering a total distance of about 103 kilometers with 19 stations, the rail project connects the New Administrative Capital (NAC) being constructed east of Cairo with surrounding distant new cities and districts including El-Salam City, 10th of Ramadan City, El-Obour City, Badr City and El-Shorouk City.
Egyptian Transport Minister Kamel el-Wazir said the first phase of the LRT contains 22 trains and will serve 360,000 passengers daily.
The LRT project is the fruit of a 1.24-billion-U.S. dollar contract signed in August 2017 between Egypt’s National Authority for Tunnels (NAT) and the consortium of China Railway Engineering Corporation and AVIC International Holding Corporation (CREC-AVIC INTL Consortium).
