CAIRO, Sept 1 (Aswat Masriya) – President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi issued Monday a presidential decree to govern the financing of the new Suez Canal development project through investment certificates.

The decree pledges the National Egyptian Bank, Banque Misr, Banque du Caire and the Suez Canal Bank to issue investment certificates with multiple categories to use their outcome in financing the project.

The Suez Canal Authority and the four banks will determine the categories, conditions and revenues of the certificates, as per Monday's decree.  

The outcome of the certificates would be deposited in the Suez Canal Authority's account at the Central Bank.

The investment certificates financing the project would be tax-exempt, as per the second Article of the decree.

On August 5, Sisi launched a mega project which entails digging a 72-km (45-mile) bifurcation to the Suez Canal as well as developing the Suez Canal region. Digging the bifurcation is expected to cost $4 billion.

The government had announced that five-year investment certificates with an interest rate of 12 percent would be used to finance the project. Certificates were chosen to finance the 60 billion Egyptian-pounds project as they do not grant certificate-holders ownership rights.

The project is implemented under the supervision of the armed forces. While launching the project, Sisi said digging the new bifurcation to the canal would be completed within a year, instead of a previous deadline of three years.