Suez Canal completes 152 years: How it reduced travel time and boosted global trade

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The artificial waterway Suez Canal in Egypt has completed 152 years on November 17, 2021. On this day in 1869, Egypt held a huge ceremony in Port Said to mark the inauguration of the Suez Canal. The Canal was at first jointly owned by Egypt and France

However, due to debts, it later became a French-British enterprise in 1875. The Suez Canal was nationalised on July 26, 1956, by the then President Late Gamal Abdel Nasser after Egypt turned into a republic. The construction of the canal took 10 years to complete and lasted from 1859 to 1869.

The Suez Canal has helped vessels plying on the oceans by connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea. The ships can now get to the eastern Mediterranean rather than cruising the Cape of Good Hope due to the Suez Canal thus reducing their time at sea considerably. 

Reports suggest that the Suez Canal is witness to almost 12% of total global trade through its waters. The figures released by the Suez Canal Authority on Wednesday show that 1.4 million ships carrying 24.7 billion tons of shipments have crossed the international waterway since 1869. Those paid fees worth a total of USD 147.1 billion.

President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi had inaugurated the New Suez Canal on August 6, 2015, which is a parallel waterway expanding the Canal’s width by almost double. Also, dredging was carried out to make it deeper.

Why was Suez Canal in news recently?

In March 2021 a container ship named ‘Ever Given‘ got stuck edgewise in it for almost a week, causing backlogs and loss of trade worth millions.

On March 23, 2021, the 200,000-tonne Panama-flagged ship, Ever Given, ran aground early morning in the southern mouth of the canal.

The 200,000-tonne ship getting stuck resulted in other vessels getting blocked from transiting the waterway causing loss of trade worth millions.

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