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Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said the bill to establish an investment fund for the Suez Canal aims to help the canal itself if it wants to carry out a project or develop the canal.
Al-Sisi added this morning during the opening activities of some industrial projects in the Giza Governorate that “since the reopening of the canal in 1975 to date, the Suez Canal has recorded profits estimated at about 200-220 billion dollars, considering that if 10% of this number was held in a fund, today there would be $50 billion for the canal.
The Egyptian president said the bill was presented to parliament so that it would enjoy legal immunity, be subject to inspection by state enforcement agencies, and there would be a sovereign authority responsible for it. He added: “If the fund were set up now, it could run on £500m a month and grow to £1bn next year.”
Egypt’s parliament last week passed in principle a law to set up a fund affiliated with the authority to invest its profits, which sparked controversy over the sale of Suez Canal assets.
While the head of the Suez Canal Authority, Lieutenant General Osama Rabie, confirmed that the establishment of an investment fund affiliated to the authority in no way entails the disposal of any of the assets of the canal as owned by the people Egyptian according to the text of the constitution, emphasizing that the fund to be set up will be financed with the authority’s budget surpluses.
