The ports of Colombo, Hambantota and Galle have little or no deviation cost for ships traversing the East West Main Sea Route (MSR).
MSR between the Far East and Europe is the largest and busiest maritime trading lane in the world. Like Singapore and Tanjung Pelepas in the Straits of Malacca, Sri Lanka sits astride the East-West MSR.
Speaking at an awareness program on ‘Sri Lanka’s potential on Logistics and Supply Chain’, organised by Sri Lanka Export Development Board recently Romesh David, Chief Executive Officer at South Asia Gateway Terminal- Port of Colombo said an estimated 650+ ships pass by Sri Lanka along the MSR daily.
Of this 4,708 ships called at all ports in Sri Lanka in 2019-an average of 12-15 ships per day. 90 percent of these ships called at the port of Colombo and 85 percent of which were container ships.
Speaking on ‘Port of Colombo-opportunities for Sri Lanka’, he said the port of Colombo is already a well-established hub among global shipping lines for container transshipment. It is also reasonably well established as a location for boarding and disembarking of sea Marshals. It is however well established for many other aspects that make up a maritime hub and are generally associated with competing with transshipment hubs such as Singapore and Dubai.
He future added that Sri Lankan missions should look for foreign direct investment opportunities especially in freight forwarding and logistics service providers, large scale warehousing and logistics parks, ship crew companies, maritime law firms and cold chain operations.
