Now that Houthi rebels have pledged to halt their attacks on the Red Sea shipping route, the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) is working hard to encourage container traffic.
In a bid to demonstrate the passage’s safety, Canal Authority Chairman Ossama Rabiee has personally visited container ships passing through the route and spoken with crew members about conditions.
“The Suez Canal is ready to receive mega container ships,” Rabiee said as he witnessed the navigation of French shipping line CMA CGM’s vessel Jules Verne pass through the canal on its way to Lebanon on 15 November. The ship traveled from Singapore and made a safe crossing through the Red Sea.
Two more vessels owned by the same shipping line then passed safely through the canal on 16 November.
Rabiee emphasized that the quick return of French shipping line CMA CGM to the canal was a product of “longstanding strategic relations between the SCA” and CMA CGM.
In a press release about the news, the SCA said that Rabiee “explained that the restoration of calmness once more to the Red Sea region will impose a new reality on the shipping community."
"That is the necessity of serious consideration by the shipping lines of amending navigation schedules so as to return to transiting through Bab el-Mandab and the Suez Canal once more,” it said.
Rabiee added that CMA CGM’s recent transits were “a testament indicating the Suez Canal’s significance as the shortest, fastest, and most secure waterway.”
Rabiee also pledged that the SCA will “intensify its meetings with major shipping lines within the upcoming period to discuss ways of the prompt return of container ships affiliated to them to transiting through the canal, be that through experimental voyages, partial return, or a multi-phased full return.”
