CAIRO: Suez Canal revenues dropped to $448.8 million in September, from $462.1 million in August, data from the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) showed.
The figure marks a 2.87 percent decline ($13.3 million) in the waterway revenues in September, as the number of vessels crossing the canal slipped to 1,515, compared to 1,585 vessels at August-end.
The waterway is one of Egypt’s core sources of income, providing about 10 percent of the nation’s hard currency. In 2014, Suez Canal revenues registered $5.456 billion, marking 6.75 percent growth compared to $5.111 billion a year earlier.
In August, President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi inaugurated the multi-billion dollar project of the “New Suez Canal” a year after its launch.
Egypt hopes the expansion project which provided a new 72-kilometer canal parallel to the old one to speed up transit time, would bolster the country’s limping economy and boost annual revenue up to $13.5 billion by 2023.
In 2014, the canal revenues amounted to $5.4 billion.