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Suez Canal Authority issued new resolutions concerning the fees of the transiting ships through the canal to be applied during the next year 2022. Moreover, Admiral Osama Rabea, Chairman of Suez Canal Authority, announced, on Thursday, increasing the transit tolls of all the types of transiting ships through the canal by 6% during 2022 compared to 2021. This planned increase will be applied in the beginning of next February. However, cruise ships and LNG ships will be excluded from this increase as their tolls will remain the same as what they were at during 2021.
Furthermore, Admiral Osama Rabea affirmed the authority’s keenness to apply a balanced and flexible marketing and pricing strategy that fulfills the authority and its clients’ interests and takes into account the global economic conditions and its different variations through clear mechanisms that include estimating the tolls of the transiting vessels, which allows providing the navigational services for transiting through the canal according to a model policy that includes maintaining the canal’s leadership and making it the optimum, the fastest, and shortest choice for the clients compared to the other competitive routes. In addition, this will be integrated with the navigational publications that are issued and renovated by the authority according to the immediate variables for each class of the transiting vessels.
Moreover, the Chairman of Suez Canal Authority clarified that the resolutions of deciding the tolls of transiting through the Suez Canal and flexible marketing policies subjected to extensive studies which are prepared by the economic unit experts that are affiliated to planning and research department in Suez Canal authority after the careful follow-up and scrutiny of all variables related to the shipping market and the global economic indicators and the global trade movement, as well as reviewing periodic reports, and the recommendations issued by the organizations and institutions working in the maritime transport industry and the estimates of global financial institutions, where the International Monetary Fund’s forecasts indicate that the global economy will grow at rates of 5.9% and 49% in 2021 and 2022, respectively. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) are also expecting continued growth in world trade traffic and rise in the demand for maritime transport at rates of 6.7% and 4.7% respectively, in 2022, thereby predicting continued high levels of the freights and good profits for shipping companies.
Commenting on the decision to fix the transit fees of LNG vessels, the Chairman explained that the decision comes in the light of the continuous follow-up to the most recent variables of the LNG seaborne trade in a way that integrates with the development of flexible marketing policies where the reduction percentage granted to LNG tankers has been modified from 25% to 15% as per the amendment of circular No. (2) of 2015 planned to be applied by November.
Admiral Rabeaa added that the transit fees fixation for cruise vessels transiting the Canal is mainly due to the fact that this type of vessels was the most affected by the Covid-19 pandemic crisis compared to the rest of the other vessels. The tourism and travel sector has suffered major losses worldwide, including cruise ships and sea yachts, and is expected to complete its recovery by 2022.
The Chairman concluded by stressing that the Permanent Authority endeavor to support its clients, gain their trust, activate communication with them and build on the successive successes of the Authority in dealing with various challenges and managing the most difficult crises throughout its history, by adopting an ambitious strategy aimed at developing navigational services for the transiting vessels through the canal and to take all procedures to enable the Suez Canal to play its vital role in the serving the world trade movement.
