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The container ship "Ever Given", which ran aground in the Suez Canal, is free again according to official information.
The canal operator SCA announced on Monday that traffic in the waterway, which is so important for global shipping, would be resumed.
On Egyptian television you could see the "Ever Given" moving slowly.
Because of the cargo ship's accident, more than 400 ships were stowed on the Suez Canal.
The "Ever Given" is one of the largest container ships in the world.
She ran aground in a sand storm last Tuesday.
The 400-meter-long and more than 220,000-ton ship got stuck across the narrow channel and blocked the waterway between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.
The stern of the ship was then exposed on Monday morning, and the bow could also be freed later.
In order to get the ship loaded with 13,800 containers afloat again, the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) had recently prepared an unloading.
When the freighter got underway early Monday morning, Egyptian time, there was applause and a horn concert from the tug crews.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said Egypt had ended the crisis and secured resumption of trade through the canal.
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The accident disrupted supply chains around the world.
German industry fears supply bottlenecks.
The canal, which was opened 150 years ago and expanded a few years ago, is the core of the shortest sea connection between Europe and Asia.
Conversely, the traffic jam has left empty containers on the way back to Asia.
The Danish shipping company Maersk said that even if the canal is now reopened, there will still be weeks, if not months, significant effects on international shipping.
The corona pandemic had already led to bottlenecks in entry and clearance in ports around the world.
At Maersk and also at Hamburg's rival Hapag-Lloyd, several ships are directly affected by the recent blockade, as they either got stuck in the canal, had to wait in front of them or were diverted.
According to Maersk, it could take at least six days before the traffic jam can be completely resolved.
The canal operator SCA, on the other hand, assumes a maximum of three days and promised to accelerate the transport of the waiting ships through the canal after the "Ever Given" has been salvaged.
"We won't waste a second," promised SCA chairman Osama Rabie.
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The Kiel Institute for the World Economy expects after the "Ever Given" has been salvaged with after-effects for world trade.
The rating agency Fitch assumes that reinsurers will face losses of hundreds of millions of euros because of the blockade.
This will have an impact on the balance sheets and also drive up the prices for reinsurance for shipping.
On the other hand, Deutsche Bahn reports positive effects: According to a company spokesman, the blockade in the Suez Canal has noticeably increased the demand for rail transport to and from Asia.
With ten days, the trains to China were only about half as long as the ship.
The demand had already increased with the beginning of the pandemic.