• Goods The traffic jam on the Ever Given ends with the crossing of the last 85 ships through the Suez Canal

A week after the Ever Given was refloated, the 400-meter-long, 20,000-container bulk is still parked in the

Suez Canal

awaiting the results of an investigation that could be made public in the coming days.

The authority that manages the sea route through which 10% of global trade crosses has just managed to get the more than

400 trapped vessels to resume their journey

while demanding multimillion-dollar compensation.



Egypt claims about

1 billion

of dollars

(about 850 million euros) for the losses caused by the closure of maritime navigation during the six-day period in which the Ever Given remained crossed in one of its narrowest sections.

The total amount is an estimate of the uncollected transit fees, the damage caused to the canal during sand dredging and salvage work, and the cost of the equipment used.



"It is the right of this country. We should receive what we deserve," argued the president of the Canal Authority, Admiral

Osama rabie

, without specifying who should bear the bulky bill.

The person responsible for the incident is one of the aspects that must be elucidated by the open investigation, in which the Authority, Panama as the ship's country, and other interested parties participate.

The results could be published in the coming days and, until then, the Ever Given will remain in the Great Bitter Lake, where it was parked last Monday when it was refloated.

Its crew, made up of 25 Indians, also continues in the country.



Among the questions that the investigation, which began last Wednesday, should address, is the question of whether the captain of the container ship followed the instructions issued by the Canal officials who were on board the vessel before running aground.

The committee in charge has requested all the data stored by the ship.

The Authority, for its part, is in talks with the ship to set compensation and has acknowledged that the captain is cooperating.

If those responsible for Ever Given reject the results of the investigation, the case could be transferred to a civil court, which could hold the ship until the end of the process.

"We can agree to compensation or go to court

", Rabie warned." If they decide the latter, the ship should be confiscated. "



The Ever Given is owned by

Luster Maritime

, a Panamanian subsidiary of the Japanese company

Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd

, the one in charge of negotiating compensation with the Egyptian authorities.

His insurer, the British Lloyd's, is preparing for an amount that could exceed 100 million dollars.

The company Evergreen Marine Corp, for which it makes the route between Asia and Europe, has specified that it lacks responsibility for delays in the goods it was transporting.

"There is hardly any margin for us to be required to pay compensation," the firm's president, Eric Hsieh, told reporters a few days ago.

"Our exposure is very low. Even if damage occurs, it will be covered by the insurer."

Consequences


The consequences of the blockade have begun to fade, at least on the 193-kilometer road that for 150 years has offered the fastest route between Europe and Asia, connecting the Mediterranean with the Red Sea.

On Saturday, according to the Canal Authority,

last 61 stuck boats paraded through the cleft

heading to their respective destinations.

Until

422 boats

they were stranded for days in different areas of the Canal and its entrances.



This Monday, Rabie has advanced that the institution's next challenge is "to increase the Canal's capacities in the field of maritime rescue by including a series of large-scale equipment with great drag force" at the level of the current construction of mega-ships .

"The Canal is safe and will continue to be the main artery of global commercial movement as well as the shortest and fastest sea route," he stressed.



"The immediate consequences are financial losses in the income section for the Egyptian authorities, officially estimated at about

$ 15 million a day

.

It is a lot but it is not a dramatic loss in relation to an annual income of 5,000 million dollars, "he admits to

THE WORLD

Amr Adly, an economist at the elite American University in Cairo.

"There is a more implicit cost assumed by all users of the Canal due to delays and interruptions in the markets and in some distribution chains," he adds.



The trance of the past week has underlined the

weaknesses and challenges

facing the Canal.

"Right now, the Canal is more important geopolitically than economically. Despite being an important source of foreign currency for the Government, the Canal's income represents less than 2% of Egyptian GDP and a fifth of the remittances received by the economy. Egyptian ", details Adly.

"These are figures that have been reduced over the last 20 years. Thinking about the Canal in relation to its potential economic activity should lead the country to deepen its integration into global chains. It is an old idea that was already raised in the Canal Industrial Zone but which has proven very difficult to materialize ", concludes the economist.

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