Thirty-five world-class speakers at S Asia shipping exhibition

The Southern Asia Ports, Logistics and Shipping 2012 Exhibition and Conference kicked off with great fanfare in Colombo on Thursday.

Organised for the first time in Colombo for two days, the event was in its seventh consecutive year to be held in Southern Asia.

It is the largest annual container ports, shipping and transport logistics exhibition and conference in Southern Asia.

The event was co-hosted by the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA).

The exhibition and conference featured 35 world-class speakers in global logistics and transport and attracted a crowd of more than 500 senior executives from the world's leading ports, shipping lines, cargo owners, shippers, freight forwarders, logistics companies, terminal operators, railway operators and port-rail service equipment suppliers from over 30 countries.

The two-day trade exhibition of nearly 60 international stands provided a valuable opportunity for companies to market their products and services to participants.

According to Dredging Today publication this annual maritime transport exhibition and conference had been designed to promote maritime transportation in the region and the event organiser had arranged a pre-conference tour to the Port of Colombo for participants to witness for themselves the port's facilities including terminals such as Jaya Container Terminal (JCT), Unity Container terminal (UCT), South Asia Gateway Terminals (SAGT) and the progress of the Colombo Port Expansion Project.

In his keynote address Chairman, SLPA Dr. Priyath Bandu Wickrama said the Sri Lanka Ports Authority was delighted to co-host this event and was prepared to do its utmost to make the conference as productive, beneficial and significant as possible.

"Sri Lanka needs a paradigm shift in its port development strategy.

The most modern port development strategy - transforming the port from a mere interface between maritime transport and land transport into a hub of seamless logistics chain and logistics value-creator or value-adder - has come to stay and this will be the next wave of port development strategy to be followed by Sri Lanka in time to come", he said.