President Mahinda Rajapaksa opened the Colombo South Harbour for business yesterday, a move that will allow Sri Lanka to regain its role as a leading South Asia trans-shipment hub. President Rajapaksa alongside Xiaoyu Zhao, Vice-President at the Asian Development Bank (ADB ) opened the new container terminal, making Colombo the only port in South Asia that
can handle the Triple-E class large container ships.
President Rajapaksa speaking at the opening ceremony of the Colombo South Harbour said , expansion of Colombo port development project was undertaken as a part of five hub strategy, after formally commissioning the loading of a CMA-CGM line vessel that could carry 11,000 containers (twenty foot equivalent units).
The 18-meter depth of the port will have the capacity to handle Triple-E class ships that carry up to 18,000 TEU. According to Sri Lanka Ports Authority Chairman Dr. Priyath Bandu Wickrema, the Port basin could be deepened to 23 metres in the future to accommodate ships with a capacity of 25,000 TEUs.
With a new breakwater, deeper basin, and the first of three modern new terminals now open, Colombo Port can accept the latest generation of 18,000 20-foot equivalent units (TEU) container ships and has facilities to send goods faster and more cost efficiently to other ports in the region. The Colombo port is extremely well located to serve the Indian subcontinent region. The enhanced deepwater facilities at Colombo Port will strengthen its strategic position on the key Asia-Europe shipping route, and would significantly boost regional trade, Zhao said. The project was developed on a public-private partnership basis. The ADB provided a US$ 300 million loan for the construction of breakwater infrastructure. With government counterpart funding of US$ 100 million, this was successfully completed by the public sector.
The first 400 meters of container operations started operations yesterday, providing additional capacity of 0.8 million TEUs per annum. The East and West Container Terminals are currently in planning stages. When fully opened, the three terminals will add a combined container handling capacity of 7.2 million TEUs to the existing port operations.
The demand forecast shows that container handling demand in 2020 is around 10 million TEUs and the capacity of the port of Colombo is 12 million TEU after constructing three terminals. Port of Colombo is ready for the next 10 years. The number of direct and indirect employment will be around 25,000 considering the number of direct supporting services outsourced by the private operators.
The indirect employment is more than 100,000.
