Suez Canal revenues down 40-50% amid Red Sea tension: Egypt president

“The Suez Canal contributes about $10 billion annually to Egypt, but its revenues dropped 40-50%,” Sisi said at the opening of the annual Egypt Energy Show in Cairo.

The canal, considered one of the world’s most important waterways, is the shortest shipping route between Europe and Asia and one of the main sources of foreign currency for Egypt.

Transits through the international waterway, however, were affected by tensions in the Red Sea amid Houthi attacks on Israeli-linked commercial ships and US retaliatory airstrikes.

According to the UN Conference on Trade and Development, weekly transits through the canal dropped an estimated 42% over the last two months.

Sisi stated Egypt faces major challenges resulting from the conflicts in the Gaza Strip, Libya, Sudan, and the Russia-Ukraine crisis.

“All this is going on while the Egyptian government is committed to fulfilling its obligations with petroleum companies, development partners, and financial institutions,” he added.

Tensions have escalated across the Mideast amid a deadly Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip, which has killed over 29,000 and injured thousands since an Oct. 7 Hamas attack.

The Israeli war on Gaza has pushed 85% of the territory’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.