Egypt has taken a bold decision to expand the Suez Canal into two parallel channels, which is a massive but necessary investment that recognises the steadily increasing volume of global shipping which has put great pressure on the Suez Canal, which takes from 17,000 to 18,000 ships a year (i.e. just over 47 every day). In addition, modern container vessels are much larger than their predecessors and cannot use the existing Suez Canal. There is also a political benefit since the 145-year-old canal is a powerful symbol of the Egyptian nation, and any plan to improve it will gather popular support.
The new government of President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi has had trouble developing its economic policies as it searches for a way to liberalise the stagnant Egyptian economy, and is seeking refuge in classic government-led mega projects which are deigned to stimulate economic activity. This may or may not happen, but the Suez Canal certainly needs improvement and in order to ensure that the project will stay on track, the former field marshal has not trusted the private sector and has put the project under the control of Egypt’s armed forces.
The immediate plan is to create a parallel canal for 72 km to run beside the existing 193 km of canal and approach channels. The new canal should be deep and wide enough to take the biggest ships, but will certainly allow a much easier movement of shipping rather than today’s convoy system dictated by the one-lane canal.
Both the Suez and Panama canals are significant parts of the global flow of trade, and cut weeks off transport times. The Suez Canal allows the markets of Europe and the North Atlantic much quicker access to Asia and East Africa than either going round the south of Africa or trying to push through the ice in the emerging Arctic route. Nonetheless, there is a real commercial danger that the massive container ships and huge oil tankers of the global transport companies will simply cease to use the canals unless they expand and keep up with the times.
