2024-02-10T08:57:14+00:00
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/ The Egyptian Ministry of Transport announced, on Saturday, the operation of the first phase of the Arab trade line between Iraq, Egypt and Jordan at the beginning of this year, following the tensions in the Red Sea.
In a report, followed by Agency, it said that the Houthi group’s attacks on international cargo ships in the Red Sea and the subsequent threat to navigation in the Suez Canal shed light on the importance of the commercial linkage project between Iraq, Egypt and Jordan, and even talk about adding other routes linking the Gulf states to Egypt.
According to the ministry, work is currently underway to implement the second phase of the integrated Arab trade line, through the construction of the Taba-Arish-Bir al-Abd-Al-Fardan railway line, with a length of 500 kilometers, to increase the volume of goods targeted for transport from the Gulf, Iraq and Jordan to Europe and America.
She stressed the Egyptian side’s keenness to provide and offer all forms of support for this new line, by facilitating procedures and encouraging companies and various entities to use the line in both directions, especially with its importance in transporting goods from the Gulf, Iraq and Jordan to European and American countries.
Mohamed Ali Ibrahim, former dean of the College of International Transport and Logistics at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport, believes that the line could be a window for Jordanian and Iraqi exports, and could also open a door for Gulf countries’ exports, as they will pass through this route, which is an investment in the idea of multimodal transport.
“Of course, this is a solution to the Red Sea crisis for some neighboring countries, but it cannot be an alternative to the Suez Canal,” he added.
In December of last year 2023, the Iraqi Ministry of Transport said that “Iraqi ports” had become an alternative to global transport lines to deliver goods from the East to the West, coinciding with the change of many major global transport companies’ lines due to security tensions in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait.