SLSC helps shipping hub

by Rohana Jayalal

The expansion of the Colombo Port will help it to capture a part of the container cargo market of the container port in Singapore, the world's second largest, General Manager, Commercial and Marketing, Colombo International Container Terminals Ltd (CICT), Tissa Wickramasinghe told the 45th Annual General Meeting of the Sri Lanka Shippers' Council in Colombo recently.

The Sri Lanka Shippers Council (SLSC) actively support the Government's vision of making Sri Lanka a shipping logistics centre in the Asian region which would result in the generation of enhanced economic activity, employment and wealth.

All council activities have been planned and prepared to support this vision and to facilitate international trade.

In 2014, the Singapore port, handled 33.87 million Twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) while Sri Lanka handled 4.83 million TEUs. Of this only 26 percent was domestic import and export cargo, with the rest being transhipment cargo, a situation which must be changed, Wickramasinghe said.

This year up to June 2015, Sri Lanka had six percent growth, while the Port of Singapore up to last month had a 2.5 percent drop in volume. So Sri Lanka has got new business coming in.

SLSC had four years of average growth of 4 percent. From 2014, domestic container shipment grew by 9 percent and transshipment grew by 15 percent, he said.

Earlier regional feeder ports which sent its transshipment cargo to Port Klang in Malaysia or to Singapore are today sending containers directly to Colombo. Chittagong which sent its feeder lines to Singapore or Klang, now send them to Colombo, and then to Africa or Europe. Now, by increasing capacity, the volume of trade between Colombo and Chittagong grew by 44 percent in 2014 to 363,127 TEUs," Wickramasinghe said.