Hazem Ghonima, a freight transportation expert and President of TAC Consultants has said that Atlantic Canada has much potential for embracing transhipment growth as a result of the soon-to-be-completed Suez Canal, similar to the growth experienced at Sydney, Australia’s ports, if it had the facilities to support it, according to Hellenic Shipping News.
PTI previously reported that many ports along the US East Coast were experiencing the benefits of increased container shipments via the Suez Canal’s route as a result of the labour strikes, which have recently returned, at a number of US West Coast ports.
Hazem Ghonima said: “There is, for Atlantic Canada, potential — it’s only potential. We are talking about this since three or four years now, that something is coming. Now it’s reality. The Suez Canal is really going to be helpful for the world and for Atlantic Canada, if some people just do it. If nobody (does) anything, nothing will happen.”
The Suez Canal project is rapidly nearing completion and is expected to be open for business by July, 2015.
It is currently forking in revenues of around US$5 billion but this figure is anticipated to double to more than $13 billion by the year 2020.
Its revenue increased by a record $22 million in Q1, 2015, taking a total of $1.2 billion.
Despite the slowing of global trade, the Suez Canal Authority recently announced that it will not be increasing its tolls, unlike the Panama Canal, which is due to be completed in early 2016, who has implemented a new toll structure, having come into effect on February 1, 2015.
