Egypt expects Suez Canal's revenues to reach $7 billion by fiscal year end

CAIRO: Egypt expects the Suez Canal’s revenues to reach about $7 billion by the end of the current fiscal year, finance minister Mohamed Maait said on Saturday.

Tourism revenues are expected to reach between $10 billion and $12 billion by then, despite the Ukrainian crisis, he added. Egypt’s fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30.

The canal is the fastest shipping route between Europe and Asia and one of the Egyptian government’s main sources of foreign currency.

Egypt’s Suez Canal recorded its highest monthly revenue to date in April, reaping $629 million in ship transit fees, the authority managing the waterway said, as traffic rebounded from the impact of the pandemic.

The monthly revenue in April was 13.6 percent higher than a year ago, canal authority chairman Osama Rabie said in a statement.

The total number of ships that passed through the 193 km (120 miles) waterway that links the Red and the Mediterranean seas increased by 6.3 percent from a year ago to 1,929 vessels.

They carried cargoes weighing in total 114.5 million tons, the highest monthly net cumulative payload to transit the waterway, he said.

The number of oil tankers, liquefied natural gas tankers and container carriers increased respectively by 25.8 percent, 12 percent and 9 percent in April versus a year ago, he added.

In addition to the impact of the pandemic, last year’s flows were disrupted after a container ship ran aground in the canal in late March.