Ocean Alliance quits East Port Said to protest high fees: International shipping alliance Ocean Alliance has decided to cease operations in East Port Said as of today due to high port fees, an unnamed executive tells Al Mal. The group — which includes CMA CGM Group, APL, Evergreen, and China’s COSCO Shipping — will continue to operate in West Port Said, the source said. An alliance made up of Yang Ming, Hapag-Lloyd, K Line, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, and the NYK Group had retired from East Port Said last year also due to high fees, after the government decided to raise prices by nearly 100%. Since then, however, Egypt has been offering discounts and other incentives to attract more traffic to its ports, and we had even heard that Transport Minister Hisham Arafat and Suez Canal Authority head Mohab Mamish had promised the shipping lines to try and repeal the hike. The two officials had also agreed to begin implementing unified port fees across the country as of July in order to eliminate competition between national ports.