Egypt’s cabinet allows GASC to co-found shareholding shipping company

This picture taken on November 17, 2019 shows the Malaysia-flagged oil tanker Bunga Kasturi sailing through Egypt’s Suez Canal in the canal’s central hub city of Ismailia on the 150th anniversary of the canal’s inauguration. – One hundred and fifty years after the Suez Canal opened, the international waterway is hugely significant to the economy of modern-day Egypt, which nationalised it in 1956. The canal, dug in the 19th century using “rudimentary tools” and which links the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, was opened to navigation in 1869 and was expanded in 2015 to accommodate larger ships. (Photo by Khaled DESOUKI / AFP) (Photo by KHALED DESOUKI/AFP via Getty Images)

Egypt’s cabinet said on Thursday it agreed a draft bill to allow the state grains buyer, the General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) to co-found a shareholding shipping company to transport commodities in and out of the country, Reuters reports.

The company, to be known as Atlantic Pacific Company for Shipping and Trade, will focus on the marine shipping of commodities within Egypt and abroad, and will own commercial shipping vessels.

GASC tenders frequently for vegetable oils and wheat, of which it is the world’s largest buyer.

Shipping offers are presented in the tender, and many are often awarded to the state-owned National Navigation Company.

READ: Is Cairo trying to counter Ankara by warming up to Tripoli?

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.