Colombo harbour expansion programme on schedule

Hiran H. Senewiratne

The Government is planning to complete the Colombo South harbour construction on schedule, which would enable to maintain the major transshipment hub in the region, Chairman, Sri Lanka Ports Authority Saliya Wickramasuriya said.

“We have to modernize the Colombo harbour to attract large ships. Therefore the Government had the full support to push the project through,” Wickramasuriya said at a meeting organised by the American Chamber of Commerce in Sri Lanka, on “Recent Development in Ports of Sri Lanka”.

He said that currently four international companies namely Hyundai, Hanjin, China Harbour Corporation and Hejgaard have bid for the construction of the break water system in the Colombo harbour expansion project.

The total investment would be approximately US $ 400 million. Once it is completed in four years from now we could attract 80,000 numbers of 20 ft box containers, which would enable the Colombo Port to consolidate itself as a major transshipment hub in the region. At present there are 40 such ships and the number of ships will increase to 190 by year 2020, Wickramasuriya said.

We also develop births and feeder liners in the Colombo Port. With the expansion work in Colombo Port three new feeders and three births will come into operations, he said.

He said that having a well-run transshipment hub is a well rewarded resource for a country like Sri Lanka and we are now adopting many strategies to fast track the port development activities in the country to face the ever increasing competition from other emerging harbours.

If we do not modernize our harbours to the international standards we will lose the hub status, which will affect, the profit point of view as most of the transshipment cargo in the Indian Sub continent huddled by the Colombo Port, SLPA, Chairman said.

Therefore, port sector development has given the high priority by the government and it has taken a policy decision to improve our all ports to handle conventional cargo handling and container cargo traffic, he said.

Wickramasuriya also said that Hambantota would be developed as a bunkering ship handling harbour, the Galle harbour will be developed as a small container handing port and the Trincomalee will be developed as a deep-water natural harbour to consolidate the hub status in the Asia region, he said.