Sri Lanka needs to embrace and adopt to emerging technological advancement in the shipping and logistics industry to make a big difference to the logistic scenario in South Asia, said State Minister of Defence, Ruwan Wijewardena.
He was speaking at the inaugural session of Asia Logistics Forum, held in Colombo yesterday.
The Minister said that Sri Lanka plays a vital role in terms of global security and global trade due to its geo strategic location in the Indian Ocean. Furthermore, it is situated strategically in the middle of the ancient Silk route of the ocean between East and West. According to the Minister, many stakeholders have come forward to assist Sri Lanka to maintain its neutrality and help Sri Lanka to effectively respond to disaster relief measures in the Bay of Bengal.
Furthermore, the minister said these stakeholders have expressed willingness to facilitate trade and shipping activities in the Indian Ocean, thereby providing new technical capabilities for Sri Lanka in terms of gantry management, tracking and delivering goods to global customers in an efficient manner. “After decades of neglect, the Bay of Bengal is today reassuming strategic and economic salience. Nearly 1.4 billion people live along its coastline and almost a fourth of the world’s total population calls this region home.
The seven countries situated immediately on and around the bay of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand have a combined GDP of approximately US$ 2.7 trillion and an impressive average rate of economic growth of around 5.5%,” he said.
In addition to that, Sri Lanka maintains excellent relationships with Japan, China, Australia, USA and the EU by maintaining the neutrality of the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal.
“The main challenge for Sri Lanka is to be an attractive logistic provider in the region for global shipping lines to make their base here and facilitate their operational requirements. I believe Sri Lanka as a country has the capability and required capacity to meet their requirements in a successful manner,” he said.
The Minister said the total volume handled by the Colombo port in 2017 was 7 million TEUs while the total revenue of Colombo port was around US $ 240 million, which is low compared to other players in the region.
“The present development of the Colombo South harbour was delayed by 10 years.
In the meantime, Indian ports have undergone massive changes and this has certainly affected the volume of the Colombo Port,” he said. He said the government is also planning to develop Colombo port’s East Container Terminal; which will provide berthing facilities for some of the large vessels once completed. In addition, plans are underway to develop Trincomalee harbour in the near future.
He said the government is keen to maintain its ransshipment shipping hub status and expanding its position to be the regional maritime hub.
To this end, Minister said it’s paramount to tap IT capabilities and hospitality industry activities to make a compound impact in the region as well as in the logistics industry.
Picture by Saliya Rupasinghe
State Minister of Defence, Ruwan Wijewardena speaks at the forum in Colombo.
‘Lanka needs to embrace emerging technologies’
0 comments: