Suez Canal contributes daily about Rupees One Hundred crore plus to the Egyptian exchequer as transit fees. In other terms, it contributes roughly about two percent to the GDP of Egypt. [8]. As per Admiral Osama Rabea the enhanced freight charges by 6% will be applicable to all ships excluding Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) carriers and Cruise ships. This certainly, will fetch additional revenues for the Egyptian Government as both the IMF and WTO are expecting buoyant trade volumes in the coming years. These in themselves will translate into increased shipping passages and tonnages that will fetch greater intrinsic revenues to augment the Egyptian GDP. [9].

It is quite pertinent to note that the Suez Canal Authority has exempted the levy of this additional transit fee on LNG ships and luxury liners /ships. The luxury liners have been exempted on the grounds that they have been quite badly affected during the recent pandemic. As a result, these concessions have been allowed to them. These enhanced rates are

applicable from February 2022. [9].

The tariff increment will fetch varying revenues which will be a function of the tonnage and the type of ship that cross the canal. Just to get an idea, the total variety of ships that annually cross the Suez Canal include cargo ships (7.61%), container vessels (26.76%), bulk carriers (27.21%], tankers (27.41%) and others including warships (3.1%) across the canal. LNG carriers constituted about 3.74% of the total traffic and a minuscule percentage of cruise ships too patronise the canal. [10].

The aforesaid statistical data which has been obtained from the website of the Suez Canal Authority, on simple analysis implies that, the cost of goods sold, or the selling price of consumer goods will go up. The very fact that the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) has exempted LNG carrying ships from this tariff hike implies, that, they have attempted to minimize the impact of inflation on the cost of manufacturing of goods. This is so because, LNG products not only are used by consumers directly but also are the basic economic factors of production both for the manufacturing and service sectors.  By not enhancing the freight charges for LNG carriers; the plausible effect of this rise of transit fees; translating into inflation has been nipped in the bud by the Egyptian authorities. Of course, the effect on the manufacturing of goods and provisioning of services will be affected in some way or the other.