Sri Lankan ports to cater to increased shipping demands

By Devin Jayasundera

The Sri Lanka Shippers Council at its 41st Annual General Meeting highlighted the new prospects for the shipping industry and stressed on the importance of the Government facilitating Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) to cater to the increased demand in the region of the shipping industry.

Sri Lanka Shipper’s Council Chairman Gehan Kuruppu highlighted a few figures, drawing on why Sri Lanka should expand its ports and harbours and develop its infrastructure according to the modern developments of the shipping industry.

“Of the entire global container volumes, 56% are from the Asian region and 55 million TEUs are revolving around the Asian region. This enables us to draw resources from the region for the progress of the shipping industry,” he asserted.

Perera went on to say that this period was of revolutionary importance to our motherland and that there could not be a better time for us and the business community.

Highlighting the importance of the private sector’s role in the growth of the country’s economy, he said: “The private sector is to increase 26% of GDP for 2011 and exports value of tea from US$ 1.3 billion to US$ 2.5 billion, rubber, cinnamon and spices from US$ 600 million to US$ 1.2 billion, apparel and allied industry to US$ 3.5 billion to US$ 5 billion, IT and BPO from US$ 500 million to US$ 1 billion and tourism from US$ 600 million to US$ 2 billion.”

To be globally competitive, he emphasised on the need for innovation of products, lowering unit or cost production, using modern technologies, automation and use of electronic data processing and technological and social appliances to enhance productivity.

Noting that Sri Lanka’s extremely low rating in the Logistics Performance Index (LPI) had discouraged foreign investors from investing in Sri Lankan business and development projects, he stressed on the need to position Sri Lanka in the first five countries of the index as soon as possible. 

He also pointed out that the main concern of the Shippers Council was to achieve a comprehensive and effective solution to the regulatory process of the freight forwarders and control the ad hoc charges on imports.

With regard to anticompetitive practices of some shipping lines, Kuruppu said that there had been many consultative meetings with stakeholders, but a satisfactory agreement between the parties had not been reached yet. He also raised the issue of low standards of equipment and containers in relation to exports and the unreasonable container charges on imports.

The need to implement an automated cargo clearing system will enable a paperless environment in dispatching all aspects of import procedures from licensing and online payments to cargo dispatch. He professed that this system was proposed in 2000/2001 and Sri Lanka was yet to see this implemented.

By 2013, the Colombo South Harbour is to accommodate the 18,000 TEU Triple E class vessels. The completed South Harbour will have three terminals and have a capacity of 2.4 million TEUs per terminal. The expected growth of the Colombo Harbour by 2020 will be 10 million TEUs.

The Hambantota Port project will enable investment opportunities for businesses as it is a fully-planned port, providing state-of-the-art services for a logistics hub, free port status, sea/air hub operations, rail and road connectivity, specific investor operation facilities, value addition and industrial park.

He also commended Ports Chairman Dr. Priyath Bandu Wickrama for his involvement in facilitating discussions with shipping companies.