Cairo – Mubasher: Egypt’s Suez Canal revenues went down by 4.5% in the fiscal year 2015-2016, according to the Central Bank of Egypt.
The international waterway revenues stood at $5.1 billion at FY15/16, compared with $5.4 billion in the previous year.
The Suez Canal Authority usually reports the canal’s revenues in dollars every month towards the end of the following month. Since February it has not published dollar figures for revenues on its website, making monthly comparisons hard to assess after the central bank devalued the pound in March.
Egypt’s central bank devalued the Egyptian pound to 8.85 per dollar from 7.73 on March 14 and announced it would pursue a more flexible exchange rate. It later strengthened the pound to 8.78 per dollar.
The canal is one of Egypt’s main sources of foreign currency. Egypt has been struggling to revive its economy since a 2011 uprising scared away tourists and foreign investors, other main sources of hard currency.
