On behalf of His Majesty Sultan Haitham bin Tarik, HH Sayyid Theyazin bin Haitham al Said, Minister of Culture, Sports and Youth, took part in the official opening ceremony of the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo on Saturday.
HH Sayyid Theyazin was received by Counselor Mahmoud Fawzy, Minister of Parliamentary, Legal and Political Communication; Abdullah bin Nasser al Rahbi, Ambassador of Oman to Egypt and its Permanent Representative to the League of Arab States; some Egyptian officials; and members of the Omani Embassy in Cairo.
Cairo opened the Grand Egyptian Museum on Saturday, which Egypt hopes will help revive tourism and boost its troubled economy.
“This is the dream that all of us imagined. We all dreamed that this project would be realised,” Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly told a press conference in Cairo on Saturday.
Seventy-nine delegations, including 39 heads of state and government, are expected at the ceremony, which begins at 7:30 pm local time (1730 GMT).
Madbouly said that the “largest part of construction, finishing and bringing this global landmark to its current form occurred during the past seven to eight years”.
More than two decades in the making, the Grand E
The undisputed star of the show, however, is King Tutankhamun’s collection of more than 5,000 objects, many displayed together for the first time.
Details of the boy pharaoh’s gold mask display remain under wraps.
The museum opens to the public on Tuesday, showcasing thousands of funerary artefacts previously scattered across Egypt.
Egypt’s tourism sector, a vital source of foreign currency and jobs, has been repeatedly shaken over the past decade and a half, from the 2011 uprising to waves of unrest and sporadic terrorist attacks in the aftermath.
In recent years, tourism has shown signs of recovery, with 15 million visitors travelling to Egypt in the first nine months of 2025 and generating $12.5 billion, up 21 percent from a year earlier.
Egyptian tourism minister Sherif Fathy expected on Saturday total tourist arrivals to stand at 18 million by the end of this year.
He told reporters the government expects the museum to draw five million visitors annually, adding that it currently welcomes 5,000 to 6,000 visitors each day.
“We hope to increase that to 15,000 daily,” said Fathy.
Elhamy al-Zayat, former head of the Egyptian Tourism Federation, told AFP the museum was part of a broader plan to transform the entire Giza Plateau.
“Egypt has created an entirely new cultural and tourist zone” at the plateau, with a nearby airport and upgraded visitor facilities at the pyramids, he said.
Roads leading to the plateau have been refurbished, digital ticketing introduced, and air-conditioned electric buses now glide past the pyramids.
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