The vessel Ever Given release agreement Suez Canal, the ship's owner and insurer - The freight ship Ever Given, protagonist of a huge jam in the Suez Canal, one of the main sea crossings in the world, being blocked for 6 days and later seized for more than 3 months by the Egyptian authorities while negotiating compensation for the damage caused, could be released this week.

According to the law firm of Stann Marine, who represents the owner of the boat, the japanese company Shoei Kisen, and the insurers of the ship, have already reached an agreement with the Suez Canal Authority, so this week could be a ceremony for the signing of the covenant and the release of the ship.

"The preparations for the release of the vessel are being carried out and an act for the signing of the agreement will be held at the headquarters of the Suez Canal Authority in Ismailia," Faz Permohamed, partner of Stann Marine, said in a statement collected by the Reuters agency. According to the entity that manages the channel, that signing could take place this Wednesday.

Vessel Ever Given release agreement Suez Canal

What is not yet known is what the departure of the ship will take place in exchange for, as compensation has been a substantial element of the negotiations. In April, the Egyptian authorities were talking about compensation of about 840 million euros to remedy a chaos that caused losses to the economy and world trade of 400 million euros an hour according to Lloyd's List estimates. Later, the Suez Canal Authority lowered its claims to about 500 million euros.

Vessel Ever Given release agreement Suez Canal: During the course of this negotiation, Ever Given has remained anchored in the Great Bitter Lake, a huge expanse of salt water about 30 miles (48 kilometers) from the area where it got stuck. Inside they have remained goods from multinationals such as the Swedish furniture company Ikea, the Chinese manufacturer of technology Lenovo, or a shipment of batamantas whose value reaches almost half a million euros.

It is unknown what the amount of the final agreement is, although the director of the Suez Canal Authority, Osama Rabie, assured a local television that they will receive a tug with the capacity to tow 75 tons vessels as part of the pact. "We have preserved the Authority's full rights, our relationship with the company and political relations with Japan," Rabie said, according to Reuters.

Vessel Ever Given release agreement Suez Canal

Despite the global impact of the jam in the Suez Canal, the sea crossing has not had a bad start to the year: in the first half of 2021 the Authority reported revenues of 3,000 million dollars, 8.8% more than the same period of 2020, marked by the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Vessel Ever Given release agreement Suez Canal: After this monumental jam, the Suez Canal Authority will expand the sea passage: it will widen it by 40 meters and increase its depth by 3 meters more to prevent a situation like the one experienced with the Ever Given. To free it, an excavator, several tugs, a specialized dredger and the influx of the tide driven by a supermoon were necessary.

Vessel Ever Given release agreement Suez Canal

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The rise in housing costs takes up most of the budget of families and detracts from the recovery of consumption, according to the OECD

In 2020, free housing prices increased on average by 2.1%, closing a year marked by the pandemic with the lowest increase in real estate prices since 2014, although it represents its seventh consecutive year on the rise. Meanwhile, in the same period, retail sales plummeted by 7.1% despite the upturn in e-commerce and the household savings rate soared to 22.5%, although its distribution is uneven among different income levels.

Although most forecasts assume that this money accumulated in the face of uncertainty and the economic paralysis caused by the coronavirus will serve to strengthen the recovery of consumption and the economic and business fabric, the progressive rise in housing prices could eventually absorb most of the pandemic savings, especially in households with lower incomes.

The latest report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) warns of this phenomenon, which reveals that families in the 37 developed countries that make up this organization already allocate, on average, 22% of their disposable income in housing, which makes it the main domestic expenditure they have to face, although this impact is more serious in younger households, with less income or living on rent.

"Even before the COVID-19 crisis, housing prices had risen dramatically in OECD countries over the last decade, especially for tenants, and the supply of affordable housing has failed to meet demand," the study criticizes, which states that 1 in 3 low-income people living on rent spend more than 40% of their income to pay for their housing, limiting their ability to meet other basic expenses.

"Today, as some countries begin to transition to recovery and others continue to fight the spread of the virus, it is more vital than ever to make housing sustainable, inclusive and efficient," says the OECD, which calls for a long-term solution to ensure access to affordable, quality and efficient housing and criticizes that housing bubbles have been "at the root of many financial crises."

In particular, the report reveals that, while the percentage of the household budget devoted to housing increased by 5% between 2005 and 2015, has been reduced by 2% for the power, a 1.3% less leisure and a 1.2% less dedicated to the purchase of clothing, and also outperform other categories such as spending on health, transport or education, although these percentages vary widely depending on the level of income.

Thus, the OECD estimated that in 2016, households with less income spent 37% of their budget to housing, while in the average household is reduced to 31% and in the more wealthy is 25%, while spending on food and clothes you lose weight in the domestic economies and represents 26% of the income of low-income households, 24% in the intermediate, and 21% in the more affluent.

Meanwhile, in Spain, the population with less income each time it spends more money to housing, from 36.8% in 2006 to 44% in 2020, according to figures from the INE collected for Five Days, which highlights that the segment with the highest income has seen it happen, the cost of the housing of 19.5% of its budget 15 years ago to 31.6% in the past year, so we estimated this increased weight of the expenditure on accommodation could subtract force to the recovery of consumption after the pandemic.