For the third consecutive month, revenues from Egypt’s Suez Canal declined, reaching USD 401.4 million, Egyptian state media reports, citing new data released by the Suez Canal Authority. The new figures showed that the revenues in January and December were USD 411.8 million and USD 429 million, respectively, meaning that the last three months have seen revenues fall by a total of USD 27.6 million. The drop in earnings comes against the backdrop of claims that ships are shifting their routes from the Suez Canal to the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa due to the global fall in oil prices. Chairman and Managing Director of the Suez Canal Authority Mohab Mamish has rejected those allegations, declaring, “The Suez Canal is the main route for world trade, and no other alternative can take its place in the field of maritime transport.” However, compared to February 2015, Canal revenues in February 2016 in fact increased by 5.08 percent. The much-anticipated expansion of the Suez Canal promised by President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi in 2014, was inaugurated a year later in a lavish ceremony attended by leaders from around…
