At Last, Egypt's GEM to Open in 2020

By Nawal Sayed

CAIRO, Dec. 23 (SEE) - In the

shadow of the pyramids, a 500,000 square meter-project is nearing completion.

The Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) has

been under construction for well over a decade and is intended to showcase

Egypt's ancient treasures while drawing tourists to help fund its future

development.

The Statue of King Ramses II is seen on the way to the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Egypt January 25, 2018. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

The project has been subjected to repeated delays, with a "soft opening" planned for next year scrapped in favor of a more triumphant inauguration in 2020, according a report published Sunday by U.S. news agency the Associated Press.

The costs have meanwhile soared from an initial $650 million to well over $1 billion, with most of the financing coming from Japan.

GEM will be the world's largest

museum devoted to a single civilization.

It's the latest mega-project to be

championed by President Abdel-Fattah El Sisi, who is wagering that massive

investments in infrastructure will revive an economy weakened by decades of

stagnation and battered by the unrest that followed the 2011 uprising.

The museum will hold some 50,000

artifacts, including the famed mask of Tutankhamen — popularly known as King

Tut — and other treasures currently housed in the century-old Egyptian Museum

in Cairo's congested Tahrir Square.

The site of Grand Egyptian Museum, which is under construction, is seen near the Giza Pyramids on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt, January 30, 2018. Credit Amr Abdallah Dalsh- Reuter

"It's a place where you can

linger to enjoy ancient Egypt," project director Tarek Tawfik said on a

recent tour of the site, which will also include a conference center, a cinema,

28 shops, 10 restaurants and a boutique hotel.

Giant windows open onto the

5,000-year-old pyramids, and the museum will feature an intact wooden ship and

a towering statue of Ramses II.

Tawfik describes it as "a

fantastic experience of ancient Egypt in a very modern building that provides

all kind of modern, comfortable functions."

Egypt's multi-national construction giant Orascom built the museum, with initial loans from the Japanese government of $320 million in 2006 and $450 million in 2016. The Japanese continue to give advice on the museum’s development and artifact restoration, but it is unclear who will provide the additional financing for the project, with costs now estimated at $1.1 billion. A bidding process is underway to find someone to operate the site.