With the complete development of its three big ports and six industrial zones, the área of the Suez Canal in Egypt should guarantee the (economic) future of the country, asserted Mohab Mameesh, Chief of the administrative authority of that waterway.
With the complete development of its three big ports and six industrial zones, the área of the Suez Canal in Egypt should guarantee the (economic) future of the country, asserted Mohab Mameesh, Chief of the administrative authority of that waterway.
In a press conference held in the port city of Ismailia, Mameesh explained that to achieve that objective, it is necessary to create new ports, develop the existing ones and build more industrial facilities.
In that way, the Suez Channel Zone
that is today the main generator of income to the country, he said, will serve the increasing demands of world trade, for the good of future Egyptian generations.
As he unveiled part of the plans for future development of the Channel, the oficial emphasized on the need to be prepared to face future and foreseeable challenges both national and global.
That is essential, he explained, as we live in a changing world, with fluctuations in production and markets and in that context, we must be identified as the best option by
transporters of the world to send their merchandises.
This 2016, he predicted, will be the year of investing companies in the area of the Channel development, which will be facilitated by the hosting on February 22, 23 and 24 of the First Global Conference on the Suez Canal, in Cairo.
During 2015, according to figures released by Mameesh, the traffic through this interoceanic waterway registered a significant growth compared to the previous year.
Thus he exemplified that in 2015 the number of ships that crossed the channel increased by 335, for a two percent growth compared to 2014, while net tonnage declared rose by 3.7 percent.
As a consequence, he resumed, income for Egypt also increased for that concept between 2014 and 2015.
That economic growth was achieved, argued Mameesh, despite the significant fall in oil prices, from an average 100 dollars per barrel to approximately 51 in 2015.
For 2016 it is expected that trend affects negatively -in the short term- the i8ncome in the área of development of the Suez Canal, as in January the barrel of oil sold for an average of 30 dollars.
Also, he added, among the foreseeable negative effects there is the reduction of growth of China's economy, whose exports to Europe which has not reached the expected economic growth- pass through the Channel.
However, even amid those global circumstances we maintain our development projects of the zone, both in the Channel as the surrounding zones, revealed Mameesh.
Among other initiatives, he said at the conference they are planning a new channel exclusive for Port Said, in the Mediterranean Coast, so the ships going there do not have to occupy a place in the Channel traffic, as it happens now.
In parallel to the development of infrastructure, Mameesh assured that Egyptian authorities work in the implementation of a group of flexible market policies that facilitated expected foreign investment in that zone.
Together with the new channel, a parallel waterway extending some 70 kilometers inaugurated in August 2015, the Suez Canal, open to traffic uin 1869, must keep contributing in an effective way to trade worldwide, he concluded.