The Suez Canal earned $2.57 billion in revenues in the first six months of the current year, representing a 5.5 percent rise from the same period last year. In the first half of 2013 the Canal collected $2.44 billion, statistics from Egypt's Information Portal show. During the first half of 2014, 8,160 ships passed through the vital waterway, carrying 459.2 million tonnes of freight, compared to 8,012 ships, carrying 443.35 million tonnes of freight during the same period a year earlier. The artificial waterway which connects the Mediterranean and Red Sea is one of the country's main sources of foreign currency revenue, along with tourism, oil and gas exports, and remittances from expatriates. Net International Reserves reached $16.687 billion at the end of June, according to the central bank's provisional statistics. http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/106971.aspx
