São Paulo – From February 22nd to 24th, in Cairo, the Egyptian government will hold the Suez Canal Global Conference: Opportunities and Challenges. The goal is to promote business opportunities in the area of the canal for business owners worldwide.
“At the end of 2015, the president [Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi] signed a decree creating the Suez Canal Economic Zone for multinationals to set themselves up all along the canal’s area, from Suez to Port Said”, said Mohamed Elkhatib, Egypt’s trade consul in São Paulo. The area has 460 km.
According to Elkhatib, with the decree, the Egyptian government plans to attract companies from the sectors of ship construction and maintenance, storage and logistics, heavy and feeding industries. “The event is important to any Brazilian company that is planning to enter these areas”, said the diplomat.
Build in 1869, the Suez Canal allows ships to travel from Europe to Asia without the need to get around the African continent. It’s a two-way navigation, but until the beginning of the second half of last year, there was a point in which the ships that were going a certain direction needed to wait up to 11 hours for the ships coming from the opposing direction so they could cross the canal.
“In August of last year, we added a new extension to the Suez Canal, which ended this 11 hours-wait. Now, the convoy can cross without having to stop at any point”, said Elkhatib, mentioning the duplication of part of the canal that was opened in 2015.
According to the event’s website, the conference will be attended by experts in maritime transport and energy, business owners from the shipping sector, oil tanker operators, economists and representatives of chambers of commerce, among other professionals.
Among the main speakers of the conference are Sherif Ismail, Egypt’s prime-minister; Mohab Mamish, president of the Suez Canal Authority; Saad El Geioushy, Egypt’s minister of Transportation; Søren Toft, operations manager of Maersk; and Peter Hinchliffe Obe, general secretary of the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS).
For foreigners, attendance costs USD 1,200. Companies that send more than one representative pay USD 1,000 for the registration of the second one and USD 850 for the third representative.
Further information about the event is available at www.suezcanalconf.com. Registrations can be made at www.suezcanalconf.com/delegate-registration.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
