Cairo - Suez Canal revenues broke a monthly record in October and were heading towards an annual record of $3 billion (R18.36 billion) for 2004, according to the chairman of the Suez Canal Authority.
Ahmed Aly Fadel said this week that he believed the canal could sustain high revenues - though not necessarily at record levels - if it upgraded to take bigger ships and kept its fee structure competitive, and if the world economy did not suffer a major downturn.
"We are very sensitive to everything around us," Fadel said. He recalled that the recession in Asia, which began a year after he took the helm of the Canal Authority in 1996, sharply curbed revenues.
The canal had benefited in the past two years from high oil prices, which made it expensive for ships to avoid the canal by sailing round South Africa. But he said if prices remained around $50 a barrel, it would hurt world trade and the canal.
He said the canal had also benefited from the boom in world trade with China. The tonnage of ships passing through the canal, going to or coming from China, grew 34 percent in 2003 to reach nearly 53 million tons - just under 10 percent of the total annual figure of 549 million tons.
He said the flow of warships to Iraq had had no significant impact. A breakdown of canal revenue for 2003 showed that only 2.1 percent came from warships.
Last year the canal earned Egypt $2.6 billion. So far this year, it has earned $2.5 billion - with October alone netting a record-breaking $268 million.
If, as projected, revenue reaches $3 billion by year-end, the canal will probably become Egypt's third-biggest source of foreign exchange after tourism and exports of oil and natural gas.
About 7.5 percent of world sea trade passes through the 190km canal, according to the Canal Authority.