Egypt has begun building eight logistics corridors linking the Red Sea and the Mediterranean in an attempt to turn into a global hub. Rail is a key part of the initiative and gathered significant international support, especially from countries in eastern Africa.
“In addition to implementing giant national projects within the framework of planning and establishing 8 integrated international development logistics corridors with the aim of transforming Egypt into a regional centre for transport, logistics and transit trade,” Egypt’s Minister of Transport, Lieutenant General Engineer Kamel El-Wazir, said at the beginning of the month.
Tellingly, the remarks were made in front of Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, and what the ministry referred to as “a number of heads of brotherly and friendly African states.” The eight logistics corridors have both top-level political domestic support and African markets in their sights with regular references to East Africa and the Nile Basin countries.
The eight corridors
The government sees the corridors as not only moving goods across Egypt and onwards – thereby easing pressure on the Suez Canal – but to linking the country’s industrial, agricultural, and mining areas with maritime ports on the Red Sea and Mediterranean, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said.
“We want corridors that link the farm to the factory, the factory to the port, and the port to the markets; that connect cities with energy, production with finance, and markets with producers; and that allow landlocked countries and coastal countries able to benefit from continental economic integration,” Madbouly said via the MENA news agency.
Madbouly also called for the corridors to be digital and use single-window systems, and affirmed Egypt’s readiness to collaborate with African nations and other partners to turn them into drivers of continental integration and prosperity, the MENA report added. “Our vision in Egypt is that corridors should be corridors for development before they are corridors for transport,” Madbouly added.
The eight major corridors linking production zones with seaports are
- Al-Arish – Taba
- Sokhna – Alexandria
- Cairo – Alexandria – Abu Tartour
- Tanta – Mansoura – Damietta
- Jargoub – Salloum
- Safaga – Qena – Abu Tartour
- Cairo – Aswan – Abu Simbel (running to Sudan)
- Bernice – Aswan – Toshka – East Oweinat – Kufra (Lybia) – N’Djamena (Chad) – Douala (Cameroon)
The last two are the most important ones as they connect to other countries according to the ministry.
Supporting infrastructure
What will help Egypt as an exporter and a transit zone are the plans for an extensive ecosystem supporting it. A comprehensive plan has been implemented to develop the rolling stock fleet, infrastructure, signaling and control systems, production workshops and human resources, to raise the levels of safety, efficiency and quality of service, while increasing the capacity to transport passengers and goods, the ministry added.
Helping Egypt’s role as exporter and transit country is extensive development of the port infrastructure. This includes the establishment of multi-purpose terminals, and the deepening of berths for 19 ports, five of which will be new. This is in parallel with the establishment and development of land and dry ports and logistics zones, with a total of nine border crossings, 33 dry ports and logistics zones across the country.
High-speed freight?
What is catching the interest of many in the logistics sector is the freight component in Egypt’s development of high-speed rail, which is planning is to build four lines. The first line (Sokhna – El Alamein – Marsa Matrouh) would be 660 km long with 21 stations and a control center.
Its assets will include 14 freight locomotives and around 50 passenger trains, according to the National Authority for Tunnels, responsible for the project. Transport Minister El-Wazir was much more candid, saying that the first line of this network, connecting the Red Sea and the Mediterranean by land, was like “creating a new Suez Canal on rails”.
The second line will connect Greater Cairo to Abu Simbel, on the way to Sudan. This will be some 1,100 kilometres length and will have some forty freight locomotives on it. By contrast, the third route will be an east-west service linking the ports of Hurghada and Safaga on the Red Sea with Luxor, along the Nile. It will have some 20 freight locomotives.
Untapped markets
For Egypt, there may be opportunities for its export amid all these plans. There is significant mineral wealth (including coal, iron ore, phosphate, limestone and gypsum) waiting to be tapped. In terms of processed products agricultural exports are very much in the frame too, with Egyptian food exports worth $6.9 billion last year. Ready made garments might also benefit. These exports increased 14% year-on-year during the first seven months of 2026, reaching $2.14 billion, according to data from the Ready-Made Garments Export Council.