ISMAILIYA: Transit fees for ships using the Suez Canal will increase in 2008 by an average of 7.1 percent, the Suez Canal Authority said on Sunday.
Fees will rise by 5.7 percent for container ships, by 7.3 percent for oil tankers and by 10.5 percent for natural gas ships, authority chairman Ahmed Ali Fadel told reporters in the canal city of Ismailiya.
Passenger ships fees will increase by 5.2 percent, naval vessels will see a 10 percent increase and all other types of ships will increase by 5 percent, Fadel added.
The authority, which has run the canal since its nationalization in 1956, last raised transit fees in April 2007.
Egypt, seeking to profit from growing Asian exports to the United States, also plans to provide incentives for ships to use the Suez Canal instead of sending goods to West Coast ports or through the Panama Canal, according to Bloomberg News.
We want to lure more containers into using the US East Coast ports via Suez, Fadel said earlier this month. We will give service with competitive and lower prices.
The authority, whose canal links the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, is strengthening ties with US East Coast terminals, including the Port of Hampton Roads in Virginia, before the Panama Canal completes a seven-year, $5.2 billion expansion that will increase its capacity. More than 18,000 ships passed through the Suez Canal last year, compared with an annual average of 14,000 for the Panama Canal.
Bloomberg reported that Chinese exports to the United States rose to $287.8 billion last year from $100 billion in 2000, according to the US Census Bureau. The Suez handles less than 6 percent of the containers traveling between Asia and the United States, with the rest going to the West Coast, where they are carried inland by rail and truck or transferred to smaller ships able to navigate the Panama Canal.
With delays, strikes and costs for inland transport rising, Suez would offer a direct all-water route to the East Coast, said Fadel, the former head of the Egyptian Navy.Suez gets 3,000 to 5,000 containers a week from trade between Asia and the United States, out of a total of more than 79,000, according to the Transpacific Stabilization Agreement, a group representing 14 carriers.
Trade from Asia increased the Suez s container tonnage 19 percent in the year ended in November, bolstering revenue by 20 percent to a record $4.2 billion.
The canal, which has offered 35 percent discounts for gas tankers heading from the Gulf to Europe, can handle the biggest container ships.
The Suez has a two-way passage and can accommodate vessels carrying as many as 14,000 containers. That represents about 171,000 metric tons of manufactured goods, three times more than the Panama Canal s maximum capacity. Most container ships can carry no more than 9,000 boxes.
The Suez Canal, which opened in 1869, is Egypt s third largest source of revenue, after tourism and remittances from expatriate workers.
Fadel said he expected canal revenues to reach $4.6 billion in 2007, the highest ever. – Reporting by AFP and Bloomberg News
