Egypt's Suez Canal revenues fall to $389.2 mln in November

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's Suez Canal revenues fell 6.9 percent to $389.2 million in November from $418.1 million in October, the canal authority website said on Thursday, the lowest since February 2015. Revenues fell 4.7 percent year on year since November 2015 when they were at $408.4 million. The canal is the fastest shipping route between Europe and Asia and one of Egypt's main sources of foreign currency. Egypt has been struggling to revive its economy since a 2011 uprising scared away tourists and foreign investors. Its $8 billion expansion, inaugurated by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in August 2015, was intended to help revive the ailing economy by doubling daily traffic and increasing annual revenue to more than $13 billion by 2023. That boon has yet to materialise. But an official from the Suez Canal Authority said last month the waterway was expected to generate $5.7 billion in revenues this year. The figure would be an improvement on the $5.175 billion achieved in 2015, despite slowing global trade and initially sluggish demand following the canal expansion. To draw further foreign currency into the government's depleted coffers, the canal authority has been considering pre-paid systems for fees that would attract large sums of cash. (Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Ralph Boulton)