Sri Lankan missions abroad need to market Colombo to be used as a hub to provide value added logistics services to Indian subcontinent, using Island nation’s Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) for value addition and Cargo.
“We would also require the support of our embassies to go and meet all the top shipping lines and logistics companies and show them the connectivity that Sri Lanka has in terms of roads, rail, within airports and ports, which will enable these organizations to have a better concentration on Sri Lankan market.” said Andre Fernando, Chairman and Managing Director of MAC Holdings (pvt) Ltd.
Speaking at an awareness program on ‘Sri Lanka’s Potential on Logistics and Supply Chain’ organised by Sri Lanka Export Development Board, Fernando added, ”we’ve had sustainable supply chain logistics system even during the COVID-19 times and we had a complete or partial disruption to supply chain and logistics business.”“As a result, leading manufactures, traders and suppliers on all business verticals were challenged to rethink about their business processes. However, Sri Lanka which is located at a geographical point covering all the shipping lines, trade lanes, air routes survived and were able to offer better services to our clients during the COVID -19 pandemic.”
“We must also not forget that Asia accounts for over 70% of the world’s population which is 4.5 billion people.
Out of that 1.7 billion live in the Indian subcontinent. If we can provide uninterrupted logistics operations, we would be able to promote Sri Lanka as a hub.
Also, we should be really concentrating on promoting Sri Lanka as Air and sea operating hub,” Fernando said.
He added that e- commerce, ship spare and bunker, crew manning, perishables, central hub operations, FMCG agencies and ship owning, mail and printing services, sea marshall transferers are other services that Sri Lanka could look at to gain more benefits in shipping and logistics industry.
0 comments: