CAIRO, Sept 14 (Aswat Masriya) – Egyptians will begin on Sunday purchasing investment certificates to fund the new Suez Canal development project from the Egypt Post authority.

The post authority has made investment certificates available for purchase in its 1600 offices nationwide. Citizens can purchase certificates immediately or within hours upon providing their IDs.

The certificates remain available at the banks, where their purchase has started on September 4. Their sales revenue hit 39.5 billion Egyptian pounds at the end of last week, marking one week since the start of the sale.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi issued on September 1 a presidential decree to govern the financing of the 60 billion Egyptian pound 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.

Only Egyptian individuals and companies are allowed to purchase the Suez Canal project investment certificates.

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.