Egypt’s Suez Canal
welcomes foreign investment but foreigners would have no control over the
waterway or over a proposed fund that would help to manage its resources, the
head of the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) said on December 23 rd.
SCA Chairman Osama Rabie
was speaking to reporters after legal amendments providing for the fund were
discussed in the country’s parliament this week, triggering speculation they
would open the door to selling stakes in the canal to foreigners. The fund, under discussion for several
years, was designed to guard the canal’s resources for reinvestment, as well as
to help it face unexpected challenges or crises, Rabie told a press conference.
“We cannot sell the
canal or rent it. It is the property of Egypt and the Egyptians,” Rabie said,
referring to lives lost during the construction of the canal in the 1860s. The
fund would be separate from the Suez Canal Authority, which already works with
foreign companies to develop projects, Rabie said. “The investor will come in
connection with the project that is being done, they will not come to the
fund.”
The Egyptian cabinet
however denied this week that the fund was a “back door to selling the canal.”
Egypt is trying to drum up foreign and private sector investment, especially
from hydrocarbon-rich Gulf states, to help address a hard currency shortage
that has hampered imports and slowed some economic activity. The canal, the
quickest sea route between Asia and Europe, is a major earner of foreign
exchange for Egypt and is expecting revenues of $8 billion during the fiscal
year that ends in June.
Former Egyptian
President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1956, which
led to a failed British invasion, is seen as one of the modern Egyptian state’s
major achievements.
