MSC returns five sailings to Suez while the tonnage figures say the recovery is still shallow
The Suez Canal Authority’s own carrier numbers show ship counts approaching pre-crisis levels while cargo weight runs at a fraction of it. That gap, not the return announcements, is what the balance of payments will feel.
MSC announced on 24 August that it had begun restoring Suez transits on a limited number of East–West services “following a review of security and operational conditions in the Red Sea region,” WorldCargo News reported. The initial phase covers five sailings across the Jade, Albatros, Tiger and Himalaya services, with the MSC Michel Cappellini, MSC Josefina, MSC Anna, MSC Tina and MSC Beryl the first vessels involved; the same report notes CMA CGM has resumed transits on selected services. The Maritime Executive, citing Suez Canal Authority figures, reported that CMA CGM-affiliated ships have made 199 transits since the start of 2026 carrying 5.2 million tons of net cargo, against 212 ships and 18.8 million tons for the whole of 2025. SCA chairman Osama Rabie met CMA CGM representatives on 18 August; Linerlytica identified MSC as the latest carrier testing the route.
The official series points the same way: real growth from a floor. Rabie told the MARLOG conference in Cairo on 8 February that 1,315 ships had transited between 1 January and 7 February, carrying 56 million tons and yielding $449m, against 1,243 ships, 47 million tons and $368m a year earlier. Masrawy, citing the balance-of-payments report, put Suez revenue for the first nine months of FY2025/26 at about $3.2bn against $2.6bn, a rise of 22.1%. Set against President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s own baseline — $9bn lost over the two years of the Gaza war, and losses running at some $800m a month in March 2025 — those percentages are recovery from collapse, not restoration. The IMF, completing its seventh review on 30 July with immediate access of SDR 1.31bn (about $1.77bn), listed “gradual Suez recovery” among the factors merely containing current-account pressure.
One item in the window could matter more than the canal and cannot yet be stood up. A financial newsletter, MENA Market Lab, posted on 30 August that FinCEN has proposed barring US institutions from holding correspondent accounts for Banque Misr’s UAE branch over some $1.8bn in transactions for 103 companies allegedly linked to Iranian shadow-banking networks, and said the Central Bank of Egypt had stated only that branch was affected. The Files has not seen the underlying Financial Times report, a Federal Register notice or a CBE statement, and a proposed rule is not an effective prohibition. It is a claim, and it is printed here as one.
Assessment: The trap in the canal numbers is using one of them. Ship counts recover fast because carriers send a handful of sailings back to test insurance and schedules; tonnage recovers slowly because the cargo commitments follow only when underwriters and shippers believe the route. Five MSC sailings is a trial, reversible in a week. The more consequential exposure is the one still unverified: Egypt’s external position rests on dollar clearing, remittances and reserves of $56.3bn, not on tolls. If the Banque Misr item stands up, it tests Cairo’s Gulf-facing plumbing at the precise moment Washington is squeezing Iran’s. Verify first.