Saudi Arabia’s King Salman has announced that a bridge linking the kingdom to Egypt will be built over the Red Sea to boost commerce between the two countries.

The agreement was signed during the Saudi monarch’s visit to Egypt last month.

The bridge will be named after King Salman, who said the historic step to connect the two continents, Africa and Asia, is “a qualitative transformation that will increase trade between the two continents to unprecedented levels”.

A Red Sea bridge linking the two countries has been proposed several times before but has failed to become a reality.

Previous estimates for the bridge project suggested a cost of around $3-4 billion, but no further information has yet been released for the latest plan.