Egypt's cabinet approved Wednesday establishing an authority to oversee development of the Suez Canal economic zone, reported state-owned news agency MENA.

Last week, Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi issued a decree to create a special economic zone surrounding the Suez Canal, part of a long planned and ambitious project to develop the area adjacent to the strategic waterway into an industrial hub.

The decree specfies an area of 460 square kilometres around the canal that will now fall under the recently amended special economic zones law.

The new authority, which will be called the General Authority for the Economic Zone in the North West Suez Gulf, will be responsible for all state land and assets in the area specified by the president in the decree.

According to the cabinet decision, the new authority will publish its aims and policies in the official gazette and will have to submit an annual report to the cabinet on its activities, and on development and investment in the area, in a maximum period of three months after the end of the fiscal year.