The transportation committee in parliament requested to review the data of Egyptian ports in regard to expenditure, revenues, and development opportunities from last year.
Deputy of the transportation committee, Mohamed Korkor, said that the current revenues of Egyptian seaports reflect a decline in performance as they scored low annual revenues compared to other ports in the Mediterranean region.
Korkor told Daily News Egypt that the committee plans to meet with the new Minister of Transportation, Hesham Arafat, within the next few days to review all ports’ revenues and development opportunities in the last fiscal year (FY).
He said that if Egypt paid more attention to the development of its ports, the revenues will increase to about EGP 30bn annually, and not stagnate at less than EGP 5bn.
The committee member Mohamed Badawi Dessouky said that the ports affiliated with the Ministry of Transportation achieve revenues of EGP 2-3bn annually, which are considered extremely low in light of the strategic position of Egypt on the Red Sea and on the Mediterranean, as well as taking into account maritime trade lines.
The Red Sea ports achieved revenues of EGP 1.2bn in the last FY, while the revenues of the first half of the current FY reached EGP 326m.
Alexandria Port Authority achieved revenues of about EGP 1.7bn in the last year compared to EGP 1.2bn in the year before due to an increase of fees, but the total containers traded decreased due to the decline in world trade, restrictions, and the increase of custom duties on imports in the last FY.
Korkor believes that the recent increase in Egyptian ports’ revenues came as a result of raising duties on container trading, which pushed the global shipping lines to abandon Egyptian ports in the last period.
He explained that the increase of revenue should not rely on a random increase of fees, as the ports should provide high-quality services to attract shipping lines, especially in terms of the charging and discharging of containers.
