Chairman of the Suez Canal Authority, Osama Rabie, said that the canal’s dollar revenue has decreased by 40% since the beginning of the year compared to 2023, after Houthi attacks in Yemen on ships heading to Israel led to their sailing route being diverted away from this corridor.
Rabei mentioned to a late television program that ship transit traffic declined by 30% in the period from the first of this January to the 11th of the same month on an annual basis.
He explained that the number of ships crossing the Suez Canal decreased to 544 ships so far this year, compared to 777 ships in the same period last year, according to what Reuters reported.
The Suez Canal is a major source of foreign currency, of which Egypt suffers a shortage, and the authorities have been striving for years to boost its revenues, including by expanding the canal in 2015. More expansion operations are currently being implemented.
The Houthi group has been attacking Israeli commercial ships or those in relations with Israel in the Red Sea for weeks in protest against the Israeli aggression against Gaza.
Many commercial shipping companies are diverting their ships to other routes. Last month, the United States announced the launch of a new international mission to patrol the Red Sea to deter attacks.
Rabie stated that only ships forced to complete their journeys urgently diverted their course to the Cape of Good Hope, and that other ships were waiting for the situation to stabilize.
Data from the International Monetary Fund reported that the movement of goods through the Suez Canal declined by 35% last week compared to the same period in 2023.
During the same period, the Fund recorded an increase in the transport of goods via the Cape of Good Hope route in Africa by 67.5%.
Earlier, an Egyptian shipping source considered that “changing the route of some lines is a temporary crisis whose impact will become more apparent the longer the period lasts.”
The Alternative Policy Solutions Project of the American University in Cairo also published in a report that, “It is expected that the Egyptian economy will be one of the most affected by the slowdown in maritime traffic in Bab al-Mandab.
Suez Canal revenues constitute one of the most prominent sources of foreign exchange in Egypt. In the fiscal year 2022-2023, the channel achieved financial revenues amounting to $9.4 billion, which is the highest annual revenue recorded, and an increase of about 35% over the previous year, according to what the authority announced last June.
