Cairo-Mubasher: Three cargo ships have passed through Egypt's new Suez Canal, ahead of the new waterway's official opening on 6 August.

The trial run aims to demonstrate the new channel's potential capacity, said head of the traffic department at the Suez Canal Authority Mohamed Saqr, adding that the canal can accomodate a number of different sizes of ships.

Construction on the new lane, which runs alongside part of the existing canal, started less than a year ago.

The project is to add a new shipping lane to the existing canal which links the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, and to develop the zone around it into an industrial and commercial hub.