1 SUESZ CANAL LOGISTICS HUB: COMPETITION AND CHALLENGES Khaled EL-Sakty Associate Professor of Logistics and Supply Chain College of International Transport and Logistics Arab Academy for Science and Technology and Maritime Transport P.Box 2033 Horia, Cairo, Egypt Tel.: +2 0100 8334341; E-mail: khaledsakty@yahoo.com ABSTRACT Suez Canal is continuously developed to accommodate modern ships where the ships draft rechead 66 feet. The Canal has four doubled zones with six bypasses with overall length 193.3 km. It is providing the shortest route between Europe and Far East in terms of distance, fuel consumption and operating costs. This allows the transit of ships in both directions and attracting more shipping lines and shippers. However, alternative routes to move trade from North West Europe to Far East have taken place including Panama Canal, Northern Sea Route (NSR) and Cape of Good Hope. Hence, the Egyptian government has recently set executive steps for a national project that aims at developing the Suez Canal zone to become one of the world's leading logistics hubs. Hub became in recent times essential for improving traffic as it provides shipping lines with adding value logistics activities and services. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how Suez Canal can be further developed as international hub to remain monopolistic position for world trade? KEYWORDS Adding value logistics activities, logistics hub, Suez Canal competitive routes INTRODUCTION The Suez Canal is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea as shown in Figure 1. Since opening in 17 th November 1869, it allows transportation by water between Europe and Asia without navigation around Africa. The northern terminus is Port Said and the southern terminus is Port Tawfiq at the city of Suez. When first built, the Canal was 26 ft deep. After multiple enlargements, the Canal is 66 ft deep. The Canal is a single lane with six passing places. It is the longest Canal in the world without locks; seawater flows freely through the Canal. The Canal is owned and maintained by the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) of Egypt. The accidents are almost nil compared with other waterways, and where navigation goes day and night. Geographically, it lies on a unique site where hosting 8% of the world sea-born trade in 2012 with annually earning almost $5.2 billion per year. Suez Canal Importance The Suez Canal is considered to be the shortest route between the East and the West due to its unique geographic location. It plays an important role in serving international trade as it achieves a saving in distance, time, fuel consumption and ship operating costs. Table 1 shows for example the saving distance between main ports using Suez Canal route compared with Cape route. Figure 1: Suez Canal