Dépêches

Research and Markets: Egypt Freight Transport Report Q3 2011

Dépèche transmise le 21 juillet 2011 par Business Wire

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/fd77f0/egypt_freight_tran) has announced the addition of the "Egypt Freight Transport Report Q3 2011" report to their offering.

Global shipping continues to suffer from the glut of vessels ordered during the pre-downturn boom years. With demand still struggling to hit pre-recession levels, the three shipping sectors - container, dry and liquid bulk - are all struggling to maintain healthy rates in the face of overcapacity in the global fleet. Indexes are falling and ships are increasingly being forced to operate below break even rates. Huge geopolitical black swan events - the Arab spring and the Japanese disaster - have further complicated the market dynamics in the shipping sector.

Egypt has felt the full brunt of the first of these events, as the second Middle Eastern country, after Tunisia, to depose its long-standing president. The turmoil leading up to - and following - this event disrupted shipping in the country hugely. February throughput figures are yet to be released, but BMI expects levels at the country's ports to have fallen.

In terms of air freight, the Middle East is the fastest growing region in the world according to IATA data, which provides a boon to Egypt's air freight sector, although its road-haulage industry continues to be hindered by industrial disputes.

Key Industry Data:

2011 total tonnage throughput at Damietta forecast to grow 2.33% to 29.32mn tonnes.
2011 air freight throughput at Cairo Airport forecast to grow 2.12% to 287,300 tonnes.
2011 rail freight tonne-km forecast to grow 0.37% to reach 4.02bn tonne-km.
2011 Egyptian trade real growth forecast at 8.94%, revised down from 13% last quarter.

Key Industry Trends:

Canal Throughput Rises In the first week of protests some of the worst clashes between demonstrators and police took place in the city of Suez, at the southern end of the Suez Canal. The Suez Canal Authority (SCA), however, stated on January 31 that the canal was unaffected by the protests, and had been operating as normal, with no impact on the level of traffic coming through the conduit. Abdul Ghani Mohamed Mahmoud, head of public relations at the SCA, told Zawya Dow Jones: 'The protests have no effect on the shipping traffic. The canal is secured by armed forces. No one can come near it. Everything is going as normal.'

Exports Take a Hit: According to the Egyptian trade minister, Samiha Fawzi Ibrahim, there was a 6% year-on-year (y-o-y) fall in Egyptian exports in January, which was attributed to the curfew and strikes. The net effect of these same factors on February's exports will surely be even greater, and there must have been a fall in throughput at Egypt's ports. East Port Said's throughput was 240,890 in January 2011, up 7.12% on January 2010's 224,858. However, the February throughput figures may yet show a decline.

Key Topics Covered in this Extensive Report:

Executive Summary

SWOT Analysis