Suez Canal on an historic high
Despite all talks of blockage and crises, the Suez Canal in Egypt achieved a turnover of USD 7 billion in 2021/2022, the highest mark for a fiscal year. This represents an increase of 20.7% compared to the USD 5.8 billion in 2020/2021, according to the report of Osama Rabie, head of the Suez Canal Authority (SCA).
Yet, pricing also took its toll. Egypt, which is struggling with inflation rates above 15% and the recent depreciation of the Egyptian pound by almost 20%, saw transit fees, particularly for oil and gas vessels, rising by 6% in February and by another 5 to 10% in March 2022.
Rabie also stated that "the navigation statistics in the canal during the fiscal year 2021/2022 ... achieved the highest annual net tonnage for a fiscal year of 1.32 billion t." He added that navigational reports during 2021/2022 monitored a clear rise in the number of vessels transiting the canal.
At a total of 22,032, these volumes were 15.7% or almost 3,000 vessels above the 19,047 units in FY 2020-2021. Furthermore, total net tonnage shipped through the canal hiked by 10.9%, 130 million t more than the 1.19 billion t in the fiscal year 2020/2021. (sh)