Around 50 container ships weighing 2.5 million tonnes have crossed Egypt’s Suez Canal from both sides Friday, the waterway authority’s head Mohab Mamish announced.
According to Mamish, 26 ships have passed through the old historic Suez Canal in 11 hours coming from the North; while there were 24 ships coming from the South passing through the new waterway.
The biggest ship coming from the north was the Panama-registered container ship MSC ISTANBUL (registered in Panama) sailing to Saudi Arabia from Bulgaria, of 181,000- tonnage.
Meanwhile, the biggest container ship coming from the south was the Danish METZ MAERSK, of 200,000-tonnage.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has inaugurated on August 6 a new extension to the historic Suez Canal, to allow two-way traffic of larger ships hoping to increase revenues by 2023 to US$15 billion.
The new waterway is set to expand trade along the fastest shipping route between Europe and Asia.
Sisi wants the canal to become a symbol of national pride and to help combat Egypt’s double-digit unemployment. The old Suez Canal is already a vital source of hard currency for Egypt, which has seen tourism and foreign investment drain away in the years of turmoil since a 2011 uprising.
