CAIRO, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) -- Egypt's Suez Canal succeeded in achieving the highest annual revenue in its history in 2021 thanks to the new paralleled waterway and the marketing policy pursued by the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) to overcome the crisis caused by the COVID-19, Egyptian experts said.
Earlier this month, SCA Chairman Osama Rabie said the revenue of the man-made canal reached 6.3 billion U.S. dollars in 2021, up 12.8 percent year on year, the highest in the canal's history.
He noted that the waterway also registered the largest annual net tonnages of 1.27 billion tons in 2021, compared to 1.17 billion tons in 2020, marking an increase of 8.5 percent.
Mohamed Ali Ibrahim, professor of Transport and Logistics at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport, attributed the unprecedented increase to the new Suez Canal, a 35-km waterway opened in 2015 alongside the original 190 km one.
"The new canal reduced the transit time for ships and attracted new types of ships and containers not able to sail through the original canal," the professor said.
In addition, adopting flexible marketing policies to encourage vessels to use the Suez Canal route, amid the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, attracted more ships to the canal, Ibrahim added.
According to the SCA, the number of ships that passed through both directions of the canal in 2021 increased 10 percent to 20,694, compared to that of 18,830 in 2020.
Egyptian economist Karim Al-Omda agreed that the unprecedented annual revenue of the Suez Canal has been achieved thanks to the wise marketing policy of the SCA, which helped attract a larger number of ships that used to sail through other navigational routes.
"The frequent expansions implemented by the Egyptian government on the Suez Canal have made the canal more capable of accommodating larger ships," he told Xinhua.
Al-Omda also highlighted the significant impact of the revenue surge on the Egyptian economy, as it is one of the most important sources of foreign currency for Egypt. "This would increase confidence in the Egyptian economy," he said.
The Suez Canal is a major lifeline for global seaborne trade since it allows ships to travel between Europe and South Asia without navigating around Africa, thereby reducing the sea voyage distance between Europe and India by about 7,000 km.
Every year, about 12 percent of the global trade volume, representing more than 25 percent of the world's container traffic, passes through the Suez Canal. ■
