Readiness of the Port of Colombo as a Mega Hub Port for Transshipment Containers

Abstract

The Colombo Port has become a hub port for transshipment containers in the South-Asia region mainly due to its location advantage and have further carved out a niche linking feeder connections in the Indian subcontinent trade to main sea routes on the back of its access to the Indian Ocean. During past couple of decades major ports around the world have faced significant challenges due to rapid evolvement in marine technology and international logistical system. Primarily there were two major thrusts have been impacting the seaports which identified as ‘Increased specialization of ship design’ and the ‘Growth in ship size’. These two aspects of ship specialization and capacity enhancement that were continued to progress resulted a greater demand in Ports and container terminals to invest on improvements to equipment and ports infrastructure. Each subsequent generation of containership which evolved has not only created new challenges to ports around the world, but also limited the number of port calls. Presently only one deep water container terminal available in Port of Colombo to handle modern day Ultra large container carriers (ULCC’s).