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Venice of the Gulf - Dubai |
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United Arab Emirates is now trying these days to create Venice in Dubai by building an artificial canal. Aside from the staggering US$11bn tag price on the Arabian Canal, its developers promise it will be the largest and most complex work of engineering in the Middle East since the construction of the Suez Canal in Egypt in 1859.
"The Arabian Canal will create life in the desert," says Saeed Ahmed Saeed, CEO of Limitless, the company developing the canal, adding: "It is Dubai's most ambitious mega-project to date, and is the biggest, most complicated civil engineering project ever undertaken in this region.
The canal, which will be 150 metres wide and six metres deep, will require digging and moving more than one million cubic metres of earth, enough to fill 400 Olympic-sized swimming pools every day for a period of three years. Upon completion, three years from now, it will be able to accommodate vessels of up to 40 metres long. The 75km canal will flow inland from Dubai Waterfront, running past east of the new Dubai World Central International Airport prior to making a turn back towards Palm Jumeirah. Many different projects will benefit from the canal running right through.
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