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Dubai unveils 11-billion dollar canal plan

DUBAI - Dubai on Wednesday unveiled the latest in a series of grandiose projects, a 75-kilometre (46 mile) canal which will extend the business and leisure hub into the heart of the emirate’s desert.

The 11-billion dollar Arabian Canal will flow inland from the city’s port of Jebel Ali to loop the under-construction second airport before curving back towards the Gulf, Saeed Ahmed Saeed of developers Limitless said.

Along the way, public leisure facilities and mixed-use developments will sprout up along its banks, said Saeed, Limitless’ chief executive.

“The project will create life in the desert,” he said.

Dubai is already famous for the construction of Burj Dubai tower, the world’s tallest.

Work on the canal project is to start in December, when machines will begin moving more than a million cubic metres of earth a day -- ”enough to fill 400 Olympic-sized swimming pools” -- for a three-year construction period.

The channel will be 150 metres (yards) wide and six metres deep, enough to accommodate yachts up to 40 metres long, said the company, a subsidiary of the state-owned Dubai World.

The booming emirate has a creek which has traditionally hosted dozens of wharfs in the city, historically a trading centre. But the natural waterway has recently been extended into the desert becoming a feature of giant construction developments.

Plans to extend the creek to have an outlet on the Gulf were also approved earlier this year.