Sri Lankan government expects to handle 7.0 million containers at the Colombo Port this year
Ports and Shipping Minister of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Samarasinghe has reportedly said that the Colombo Port expects to handle 7.0 million containers in 2018, up 12.9 percent from the 6.2 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) handled in 2017 with joint marketing by three terminals.
The Minister has been quoted as saying in the local media that the Jaya Container Terminal of the state-run Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA), South Asia Gateway Terminal of the John Keells Holdings and Colombo International Container Terminal (CICT) of China’s CM Ports have inked a deal to jointly promote the port.
“Although the three terminals compete separately and individually, now they can work on a collaborative mission to operate vessels calling at the Port of Colombo,” Samarasingha has said.
In 2017 Colombo’s container volumes including transhipment and domestic have grown by 8.3 percent to reach 6.2 million TEUs.
Sri Lanka Ports Authority Chairman, Parakrama Dissanayake has reportedly said that Sri Lanka’s Colombo Port handled 564,155 containers in January, up 16.4 percent from a year earlier.
Under the collaboration deal, waiting time for all container vessels arriving at the Colombo Port will be minimized by allowing vessel to be accommodated at the earliest available terminal in addition to collaborative promotion of the port.
In 2017, the Colombo Port moved up two places to become the 25th busiest container port.
According to Samarasinghe, it was commendable to witness the Colombo Port had achieved great feats through public-private collaboration.
OSL take:
The confidence expressed by the Sri Lankan government in achieving the target of handling 7.0 million containers in 2018 by the Colombo Port, which is a 12.9 percent increase from 2017, is a sign of the growing ports and shipping industry in the country. These indications would further boost the investor/business confidence in the Sri Lankan economy.
| Article Code : | VBS/AT/20180321/Z_4 |