By El-Husseiny Hassan
The opening of the New Suez Canal projetc represents a good opportunity for Egypt to become the heart of world trade by building the largest logistics centre in the region, said FDI-Intelligence Editor-in-Chief Courtney Fingar. FDI-Intelligence is specialised in monitoring direct investment around the globe and is a subsidiary of the British Financial Times.
She told Daily News Egypt that the development of the Suez Canal Axis will attract foreign direct investment in the intermediate term in a range of important sectors, including manufacturing.
She pointed out that the development of the axis supports the Egyptian logistical capability in the eyes of foreign import and export companies looking to work in Egypt.
Fingar said that it is hard to calculate the revenues of the Suez Canal after digging a parallel 35 km long canal, due to some of the variables in international trade from time to time, noting that the economic value may be huge in the future in general.
She added that the trade traffic within the Suez Canal is expected to increase during the upcoming period. However, doubling the revenue depends on investment decisions in the region and how to promote them by the government. This will take time, she said.
Fingar said that the government needs to apply multi-level strategies that combine global marketing and awareness of international affairs, and to identify the targeted companies and providers of logistics services, to attract foreign direct investment to the Suez Canal Axis.
She noted that the studies conducted by the Egyptian government examining the global market and multinational companies wishing to invest in such areas and develop the canal axis are very well done. Those studies show the requests and demands of investors in the region and contribute to the quick beginning of the entry of investments.
Fingar said that global trade is in need of new, improved and highly efficient trade routes, allowing fast and easy trade between the continents of the world, in light of the improvement and development of commercial vessels’ size.
FDI-Intelligence is a global agency working under the British Financial Times. It monitors foreign direct investment around the world on regular basis, and prepares private researches on investment developments in all countries. It also offers a monthly ranking list of different investments in various countries. FDI-Intelligence also has a monthly issue that monitors the changes and the most important economic events affecting foreign direct investment.
