Master Divers forays into feedering with MV "Ruhunupura"

Involvement: Master Divers, a very reputed and a diversified group involved in ship owning, ship repairs, salvage operations, sugar manufacturing and hospitality trade have recently forayed into the very competitive world of Feedering.

Master Divers's vessel m.v. "Ruhunupura" is the only Sri Lankan Flag vessel in this business. The m.v. "Ruhunupura" of 550 teu capacity sailed from Colombo on 18th December 06 to Chennai and has been in this sector since then. Within a short span of a month, the vessel's capacity utilization has jumped up to respectable levels.

The Chairman of Master Divers Wicky Wickramanayake, started his career in the then Colombo Port Commission. He is one, if not the Chief Architect behind the Hambantota Port Project.

Wickramanayake, when contacted mentioned that he had entrusted the Commercial Management of the Ship to Sar Shipping, a well experienced and dedicated team of professional Ship Managers.

Wickramanayake stated that he was impressed with what MD of SAR Group of Companies and MD of HRC Agencies Raaju Radha had stated recently at the 5th Anniversary Celebrations of HRC Agencies Lanka held recently at Hilton, where he had mentioned that, it is time now for all Sri Lankan ship owners - big and small to deploy their tonnage in the region in the Feedering field and put a stop to our precious foreign exchange being siphoned out.

He requested such ship owners to emulate the private sector Bangladeshi ship owner like HRC Shipping Dhaka. .Raaju Radha mentioned that with the recent incentives granted in the national budget, it was high time that Sri Lankan entrepreneurs ventured into this field as well since there was sufficient local knowledge available to run such services.

It is worthwhile here to quote an extract of an article titled "State's Role in Supporting Private Sector Ship Owners" contributed by Director SAR Group Lakshman P. De Silva to the local media in June 2005, where he has stated quote globally the general trend is towards "hub ports" in air transportation as well as sea transportation.

Hence, the best opportunity for Sri Lanka now lies in the development of local Ship Owning Companies to operate cost effective, reliable and efficient Sri Lanka Flag Feeder Services, perhaps, in collaboration with some Maritime Members of "SAARC" and ensure that Foreign Exchange is retained in the region unquote.