It’s hard to believe that a 9-mile bridge could link two continents and potentially draw a life-changing economic course for Yemen and Djibouti, whose strategic coastal locations offer an ideal setting for a connecting bridge.
Yet this ambitious enterprise is precisely what is currently being studied. According to Al-Bayan newspaper, the Middle East Development Company of Dubai is in talks with the governments of the two nations regarding the construction of the bridge, hoped to serve as a gateway for tourism and commerce for the source countries.
Previously connected only by common hardships, the two nations will now be able to share in what promises to be no less than an economic revival. The bridge project, rumored to launch in early spring 2007, is estimated to cost $1 billion, with no word yet on the completion date.
In addition to the highway encouraging inter-continental visits, the bridge will include a railway track, which will offer Yemeni exporters a faster alternative to maritime shipping and a more cost-effective option over air transport. With the increase of free-trade agreements and inter-regional construction projects, the ease of transport between the two regions should extend export advantages for Arab countries in product and labor costs.
Yemen’s exports, which include crude oil, vegetables, coffee and cotton, among other necessities for Africa’s arid countries, are sure to rise with the construction of this bridge.
The bridge will also open promising doors to labor exchanges with the continuously thriving GCC countries in the areas of manufacturing, construction and engineering.
Djibouti, a major regional port, trans-shipment and refueling center, and the oil-exporting nation of Yemen both stand to benefit from such an enterprise, because of its restorative economic potential in the areas of trade, tourism and labor. Thus this bridge could envision the fairly rapid and much-needed insertion of funds for their ailing economies.
