Egypt: Red Sea Attacks Did not Significantly Affect the Suez Canal

A container ship passes through the Suez Canal in front of small boats waiting on the dock. (from the Suez Canal website)

Amr Al-Samadouni, Secretary-General of the International Transport and Logistics Division at the Cairo Chamber of Commerce, said on Tuesday that tensions in the Red Sea region caused by the Houthi group did not significantly affect navigation in the Suez Canal.
In press statements, he added that maritime and international transport operations “are proceeding regularly, especially after Maersk announced the resumption of shipping through the Red Sea.
A schedule of shipping by the Danish company Maersk, issued late Monday evening, showed that the company maintained plans to pass more than 30 container ships through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea in the coming period, despite an attack over the weekend on one of its tankers in the region.
But Maersk also suspended plans for some ships to pass through the Red Sea route amid the continued risk of attacks by Houthi militants in Yemen, saying that it would announce the itinerary for each ship at a later time.
The Red Sea is the only route to the Suez Canal, connecting some of the world’s largest consumers of tradable goods in Europe with major suppliers in Asia.
The Suez Canal accounts for about 12 percent of global trade, which represents 30 percent of the total global container traffic, and more than a trillion dollars in goods annually.
Importers in Egypt warned against the rise in prices of imported goods, stressing that the crisis should not be exploited by some parties.
Al-Samadouni explained that Maersk’s suspension of traffic through the Suez Canal “only lasted few days,” noting that 76 ships have actually diverted their course to cross the Cape of Good Hope route during that period, which is a small percentage compared to the 2,128 ships crossing the Suez Canal during this same period.