Trade between Egypt, Turkey faces deadlock

Roll-on/roll-off (RO-RO) services between the Mediterranean Turkish port of ?skenderun and a number of Egyptian ports face setbacks due to recent developments in Egypt. The issue is of particular concern as RO-RO services have been of great significance for Turkey’s trade with the Middle East since 2011, when the Syrian unrest first emerged.

“Our RO-RO ship has been waiting off an Egyptian port for the last two days. There are 111 heavy vehicles on it. We hope they can approach the port by tomorrow, which would allow our all passengers to be transported to anywhere in Egypt and its neighboring countries as safely as possible,” Fatih Uzunçak?r, the operations manager of Sisa Shipping, a Turkey-based shipping company which makes RO-RO trips between the two countries twice a week, told the Hürriyet Daily News in a telephone interview July 5.

There are more than 350 large-volume land transportation vehicles in Egyptian, Saudi Arabian, and Turkish ports waiting to be loaded onto RO-RO ships, according to figures from the Istanbul-based International Transporters Association (UND). RO-RO ships are vessels designed to carry wheeled cargo such as cars, trucks, trailers and railroad cars, which are driven on and off the ship on their own wheels.

There are two companies that have been making RO-RO trips between Turkey and Egypt twice a week since 2012. UN RO-RO, another company that was making this trip, ended its trips before the beginning of this week, according to sector representatives.