Suez Canal Economic Zone to Set up Investment Arm

A cargo ship is seen crossing through the New Suez Canal, Ismailia, Egypt, July 25, 2015. (Reuters)
A cargo ship is seen crossing through the New Suez Canal, Ismailia, Egypt, July 25, 2015. (Reuters)
TT
20

Suez Canal Economic Zone to Set up Investment Arm

A cargo ship is seen crossing through the New Suez Canal, Ismailia, Egypt, July 25, 2015. (Reuters)
A cargo ship is seen crossing through the New Suez Canal, Ismailia, Egypt, July 25, 2015. (Reuters)

Egypt wants to create an investment arm to channel funds to projects along the Suez Canal to take advantage of proximity to one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, the chairman of The Suez Canal Economic Zone said.

The government has been directing billions of dollars of investment over recent years to upgrade infrastructure around the Suez Canal, seeking to attract the logistics, maritime services, manufacturing, information technology and power industries.

The zone, one of the country’s megaprojects, has been in the pipeline for at least two decades but has received fresh impetus since Abdul Fattah al-Sisi became president in 2014, with the government hoping it will become a major engine of growth and jobs.

“We’d like to see a financial arm to this ... It can go into partnership with developers. It will go to banks and lending banks and investment banks and so on to create a particular opportunity,” SCZone Chairman Yehia Zaki said on Sunday at a meeting of the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt.

“We are now preparing its scope and incorporation. The intention is to create an investment and commercial arm,” he added, according to Reuters.

The SCZone is made up of six ports and four industrial zones scattered along the waterway, through which passes almost 10% of world trade, or 18,000 ships a year.

Zaki, who took up his post five months ago, said the SCZone has been working with financial institutions and banks to monetize land, infrastructure and cash flow.

“We can go to special bonds, we can go to multilateral development banks, we’ll go to commercial banks,” he said.

The government has built tunnels under and bridges over the canal and laid out highways as well as desalination, electricity and water treatment plants. It is also expanding its natural gas network to boost supplies from new fields both on and offshore.

The zone has projects to build new cargo terminals at ports at East Port Said and Sokhna and is upgrading other ports at Adabiya, West Port Said, al-Tor and al-Arish.

The SCZone last month signed a contract with a consortium led by Toyota Tsusho Corp, owned by Japan’s Toyota Group, to set up a roll on, roll off terminal at East Port Said at an investment cost of almost $160 million.

It is also nearing agreement with Dubai World on a deal to develop the port areas with potential investment of $600 million, Zaki said.



German Central Bank Chief: US Tariffs Would Eat Up German Growth in 2025

President of the Bundesbank, Dr Joachim Nagel, speaks during an interview at the G20 finance meeting in Durban, South Africa, on July 17, 2025. REUTERS/Rogan Ward
President of the Bundesbank, Dr Joachim Nagel, speaks during an interview at the G20 finance meeting in Durban, South Africa, on July 17, 2025. REUTERS/Rogan Ward
TT
20

German Central Bank Chief: US Tariffs Would Eat Up German Growth in 2025

President of the Bundesbank, Dr Joachim Nagel, speaks during an interview at the G20 finance meeting in Durban, South Africa, on July 17, 2025. REUTERS/Rogan Ward
President of the Bundesbank, Dr Joachim Nagel, speaks during an interview at the G20 finance meeting in Durban, South Africa, on July 17, 2025. REUTERS/Rogan Ward

The Bundebank expects growth of 0.7% in Germany in 2026 but this could be eaten up if US tariffs of 30% threatened by President Donald Trump were implemented, the central bank's President Joachim Nagel told Reuters in an interview.

“If tariffs materialize in August, a recession in Germany in 2025 cannot be ruled out,” Nagel said in Durban, South Africa, where the meeting of G20 finance chiefs is taking place on Thursday and Friday.

The 30% tariff on European goods threatened by Trump would, if implemented, be a game-changer for Europe, wiping out whole chunks of transatlantic commerce and forcing a rethink of its export-led economic model.

“The outlook for the German economy has just improved, especially due to the fiscal program that has been announced and is now being implemented by the German federal government, which also sets the right accents: investments in infrastructure, in future technologies,” Nagel said. “But this uncertainty could significantly weaken a positive outlook.”

Also, German Finance Minister Klingbeil told Reuters on Thursday that the European Union should find solutions to its finances without using common borrowing.

Klingbeil said the EU had joint debt in the last few years, but that was in a crisis situation during the COVID pandemic, he said in an interview on the sidelines of a G20 meeting in Durban, South Africa.

“Overall, we need to resolve the finances of the EU differently than through a policy of joint debt,” he said.

“Fortunately, we are not in such a crisis right now,” he added.