ISMAILIA – Head of the Suez Canal Authority Osama Rabie said Sunday navigation movement at the Suez Canal has shown significant improvement in the first half of 2021.
Up to 9,763 ships transited the Canal in the first half of 2021, marking an increase of 2.3 percent, compared to 9,546 vessels in the same period of 2020, Rabie said in a statement.
Those ships were carrying 610.1 million tons, marking an increase of 3.8 percent, compared to 587.7 million tons in the same period of 2020, he added.
Despite various challenges, the canal revenues have witnessed a major boom, recording the highest annual revenue in its history by reaching $5.84 billion in 2020/2021, compared to $5.72 billion in the previous year, with an increase of 2.2%, Rabie said.
The canal revenues in the first half of 2021 hit $3 billion, up 8.8 percent from the same period last year.
The SCA head said that the Suez Canal Authority developed a strategy based on flexible marketing and pricing policies, with a view to increasing the number of ships crossing the waterway.
The incentives and reductions introduced by the SCA contributed to making a great leap in the number of dry cargo ships, oil tankers and liquefied natural gas vessels that crossed the waterway, he added.
