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LequteMan
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The Egyptian government is considering selling shares to the public to help finance a high-speed passenger rail project extending up the Nile valley, transport ministerer, brahim El-Demiri told the financial daily, al-Mal.
He said that the railway would run from Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast to Cairo and then to the tourist centre of Luxor in the far south, a distance of 800 km.
He said a further line would later run to tourist towns on the Red Sea in a project that would eventually cost 70 billion Egyptian pounds (10 billion dollars).
Demiri gave no time frame for the project, which could eventually boost a tourist sector battered by nearly three years of unrest, with the toppling of Hosni Mubarak after almost 30 years in power and the ouster of Mohamed Morsi.
The new railway would eventually transport around four million tourists annually, al-Mal said.
The Transport Ministry has set up a legal committee to study the rail project, Demiri told al-Mal.
NAN