SYDNEY — A massive expansion initiative underway at a shipping route half a world away could be the key to making Sydney harbour the valuable shipping destination the community desires.
© Greg McNeil/Cape Breton Post
Hazem Ghonima stands on Sydney's waterfront after his keynote address during Sydney Harbour Ports Day on Thursday. Ghonima, the president of Ottawa-based TAF Consultants, spoke about the potential of Suez Canal traffic reaching Atlantic Canada.
The Suez Canal in Egypt is being expanded to update it from one to two shipping lanes, improving its efficiency and capacity.
Hazem Ghonima, who spoke about the canal at Sydney Harbour Ports Day, said Atlantic Canada could already be taking advantage of Suez traffic that is sending modern ships filled with goods from Europe and Asia past this region on its way to American destinations.
"There is for Atlantic Canada potential, but it is potential," said Ghonima, who is president of Ottawa-based TAF Consultants, which provides consulting services in freight transportation.
"It's up to the people in Atlantic Canada to work for it and they will get it, but if nobody does anything nothing will happen."
Atlantic Canada has the potential to attract an additional 1.2 million 20-foot equivalent units of container terminal traffic that is travelling through the current Suez Canal, he said. One twenty-foot equivalent unit is equal to one 20-foot container.
Estimates could grow to three times that once the canal doubles its capacity by August.
Modern container terminals are needed to bring that traffic to Atlantic Canada, though.
"According to studies, it is one day less timing to bring from (the) south of China through the Suez to Atlantic Canada than going to the Panama Canal and going to New York."
Sending traffic to Sydney is two days less, he said.
No agreements or funding are in place to put a terminal in Sydney, which places the area's ability to take advantage of that traffic in jeopardy.
"I only show the potential and I'm talking about it now four or five years but I see some good things coming. I heard something and I don't know what will happen but you never know."
Ports Day also featured Michael Merritt, chair of the Port of Sydney Development Corp., a video welcome from federal Transportation Minister Lisa Raitt and Cape Breton Regional Municipality Mayor Cecil Clarke.
Marlene Usher, CEO of the port, also listed off the port's advantages and CBCL engineering offered an update on the harbour dredging.
There was also a rail update from the province that recapped what was discussed at a rail rally last week.
Barry Sheehy, a writer and business consultant, was expected to speak on an investor's perspective of the port but he was delayed.
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