Egypt’s Suez Canal Authority said in an official statement on Sunday, January 2, that its annual revenues reached $6.3 billion last year.
This was the highest in the history of the waterway that connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea, the statement quoted SCA President Admiral Ossama Rabie as saying.
He said the canal’s revenues rose 12.8 percent in 2021, compared to 2020 when they were $5.6 billion. He pegged the total increase in revenue at $720 million.
Rabie said 20,649 vessels flowed through the canal last year, an increase of 10 percent compared to 18,830 vessels in 2020.
The total net load through the canal in 2021 was 1.27 billion tons, compared to 1.17 billion tons in 2020, which marked an increase of 8.5 percent.
Rabie cited the SCA’s marketing and pricing policies for this increase in traffic and revenue.
About 10 percent of global trade, including 7 percent of the world’s oil, flows through the Suez Canal.
First opened in 1869, the canal is a source of national pride and foreign currency to Egypt.
The unprecedented 2021 revenues came as the shipping industry is still under pressure from two years of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The canal, one of the world’s most vital waterways, was blocked for six days in March when a massive Panama-flagged container ship, the Ever Given, ran aground in the single-lane stretch.