Suez Canal Revenue on the Rise

Egypt's Suez Canal revenue for the first 10 months of the 2017-18 fiscal year ending in June rose to around $5.1 billion, state news agency MENA quoted Finance Minister Amr El Garhy as saying on Sunday.

Garhy did not provide a comparative figure but said he expected revenue for the entire 2017-18 fiscal year to reach about $5.6 billion, a 14 percent rise from the previous year, according to MENA.

Egypt's Suez Canal earned $4.95 billion in revenue during the 2016-17 fiscal year, according to central bank data.

Egypt has said previously an $8 billion army-led expansion of the canal completed in 2015 would help boost canal revenue to $13 billion by 2023 and that a sprawling economic zone along the canal would eventually make up about a third of the economy.

The Suez Canal is the fastest shipping route between Europe and Asia and one of the main sources of foreign currency for the Egyptian government.

(Reporting by Omar Fahmy Writing by Eric Knecht; editing by David Evans)