CAIRO: Some parties have been trying to exploit the blockage of the Suez Canal by a massive ship, according to the Egyptian presidency.

The country’s presidential spokesperson, Bassam Radi, said in a televised statement that the Suez Canal, the most important waterway for the movement of global trade, had witnessed the active transit of 18,000 ships last year with no accidents occurring at all.

Exploiting the blockage was a natural reaction and was being done only to promote the Cape of Good Hope or something else,
he said.

Radi added that the “Ever Given,” which is carrying the Panama flag, was one of the largest ships in the world with a length of about 400 meters, a width of 60 meters and a draft of 16 meters. He said that what had happened to the ship was “exceptional and fixing it is ongoing.”

He explained that using the Cape of Good Hope may increase the vessel’s transit time by 10 to 14 days, an increase in over the transit time in the

Suez Canal, and which, according to local newspaper Akhbar El Youm, required a greater period of operation, more salaries, more effort on ships, greater insurance risks and other problems.

Egyptian efforts were continuing to float the stricken ship, which has a carrying capacity of 224,0000 tons, after it ran aground last Tuesday in the Suez Canal during a sandstorm.

It blocked the waterway linking the Mediterranean with the Red Sea, through which more than 10 percent of global maritime trade passes through.