A National Maritime and Logistics Policy will be formulated within three months and it will be an inclusive approach where all stakeholders’ involvement will be sought, said Ports Authority Chairman Dr Parakrama Dissanayake, addressing the 36th AGM of Sri Lanka Logistics and Freight Forwarders Association (SLAFFA), held in Colombo last Thursday, as the guest of honour. Jagath Pathirane was appointed as the Chairman of SLAFFA for the period 2017/2018.
Elaborating further, Dr Dissanayake said it will go beyond maritime limits and encompass road and rail transport. He said they have also embarked on a port master plan to look at medium and long term needs of the nation.
The Chairman said as a small nation Sri Lanka has done exceptionally well. “We have a port which is handling almost six million containers per year.
All ports in India put together handle about 11 million containers per year. So as a small nation with a small population we have done well,” he said.
Sri Lanka has a port which is among the largest 25 ports in the world he said, continuing that another important area that they have embarked on already was the modernization of the Jaya Container Terminal (JCT). “We will be modernizing the JCT 4 by embarking on a JCT 5 as well where we can handle two deep craft earth ships at once,” he said.
The Chairman said CICT cannot work three large vessels at once because the key length is 1,200 metres and only two 400-metre vessels can be worked on. Dr. Dissanayake said there was a shortage of deep draft berths which was posing a huge challenge to the Port of Colombo and that issue needed to be addressed by policymakers. He said the Minister was very keen on operationalising the East Container Terminal as earlier as possible.
The Chairman said they also had a plan to establish a cargo distribution centre at Bloemendhal and create a logistics corridor in consultation with the Western Region Megapolis Project and if the Minister agrees, to work on these two projects as a public-private partnership.
Dr Dissanayake said that there was also a detailed study of a port on the North side of the existing Port of Colombo and the ADB will provide funds to carry out that study.
He said that shortly they would be calling for an Expression of Interest to launch a yacht marina and a ship repair and service providing centre in the Port of Galle.
The Chairman said in Trincomalee they plan to develop the entire area of 5,000 hectares of land with the Ashroff Jetty expansion plan and they will lengthen the Ashroff Key to accommodate larger vessels in Trincomalee and also have a rail connection between the China Bay and the Ashroff Jetty. The key of Kankesanthurai (KKS) would also be lengthened, he noted.
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