The Suez Canal recorded an increase in revenue Egyptian authorities.

The Suez Canal recorded an increase in revenues last year according to new figures released by Egyptian authorities.

Suez Canal revenues recorded $5.456 billion in 2014, marking 6.75 per cent growth compared to $5.111 billion a year earlier, Egypt’s State-owned news agency MENA reported.

During the course of the past year, 17,150 ships loaded with 962.840 million tons passed through the artificial waterway, added MENA.

The waterway is one of Egypt’s core sources of income, providing about 10 percent of the nation’s hard currency.

Head of Suez Canal Authority Mohab Mamish attributed the rise to “the confidence of the maritime community and the owners of ships and transportation companies globally in the efficiency of running and securing the waterway by the Egyptian Armed Forces,” Youm7 reported Monday.

Earlier in August, President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi launched a multi-billion dollar Suez Canal expansion project called “the New Suez Canal” in an attempt to revive Egypt’s limping economy. The project will establish a new 72-kilometre canal parallel to the current one to speed up transit time, and allow two-way traffic.

The Suez Canal expansion is expected to boost annual revenue up to $13.5 billion by 2023.

“The ongoing New Suez Canal project, which has been funded by citizens’ investment certificates, will raise the canal’s revenues to $100 billion in three to five years,” Mamish said in a presentation to the Cinema Professions Syndicate in Ismailia Monday.