Egypt : Suez Canal Recorded Record Revenues in 2020-2021

The Suez Canal recorded record revenues during the year 2020-2021. This was announced on July 11 by Osama Rabie, chairman of the Suez Canal Authority (SCA).

According to the official, between the years 2019-2020 and 2020-2021, this trade route saw its revenues increase by approximately $ 124.3 million. “The revenues of the Suez Canal, despite the various challenges, have seen a significant boom recently, with navigation statistics in fiscal year 2020/2021 recording the highest annual revenue in the history of the canal amounting to 5.84 billion against 5.72 billion dollars during the fiscal year 2019/2020 ”, indicated Oussama Rabie in his press release. This represents an increase to 2.2%, a solid performance given the difficult economic context marked by the covid-19 pandemic, and the failure of Ever Given.

Indeed, on March 23, the Taiwanese container ship flying the Panamanian flag got stuck in the canal, blocking traffic in this seaway, which handles 10% of world trade. During the six days that this stranding lasted, the world economy was strongly impacted with in particular an increase in oil prices, while according to the SCA, Egypt recorded between $ 12 million and $ 15 million in daily losses, not to mention the funds mobilized to free the ship.

Following the incident, the container ship was seized and legal proceedings were launched to determine the conditions for repairing the damage suffered, before it was finally released on July 7, after the signing of a confidential agreement. compensation.

According to Osama Rabie, it was during the first half of 2021 that revenues from this sea route increased the most. “The turnover of the channel during the first half of the Gregorian year 2021 was around $ 3 billion compared to $ 2.76 billion during this period last year,” he said. reported, attributing the $ 237 million hike to flexible marketing and pricing policies put in place by authorities after the covid-19 slowdown.

Moreover, for the next few years, Cairo seems to be betting on a further rise in the canal’s revenue curve, thanks in particular to the planned modernization and widening works. By the end of the calendar year, Mr. Rabie said he hopes that “performance rates… will reach unprecedented unrecorded records, in terms of number of vessels in transit, tonnage and of generated income ”.