Suez Canal Contributes with Record Revenues to Egypt Economy

TIN news:        Toll revenues through the Suez Canal increased in the first quarter of this year 22. 600 000 dollars, compare to the same period of 2014, officials sources noted.
 
Between January and March this year the cash registers of the strategic waterway received 1,214.6 billion dollars, according to the administrating authority.
 
The canal, with 163 kilometers length and joining the Red and Mediterranean seas, was inaugurated in 1869 with a lavish ceremony attended by the then French Empress Eugenie de Montijo, and was nationalized on July 26, 1956 by the then Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser.
 
The decision, taken in response to the blockade of the West powers to grant loans in order to build the Great Aswan Dam, moved France and the United Kingdom, allied with Israel to launch a military aggression that led to the second Arab-Israeli war.
 
An erroneous version asserted that during the opening of the canal was the debut of the Opera Aida by Italian composer, Giuseppe Verdi, but the reality is that the history of the nasty loves of the Ethiopian slave and Egyptian captain was premiered in 1873.
 
The current government of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi began last year the construction of a canal parallel to the one existing, the core of a development plan in the northern Sinai Peninsula, whose inauguration is scheduled for August.