India’s new mega ports no threat to SL: expert

Says Sri Lanka’s aim is to be a regional port and Colombo has its own strengths 

By Chandeepa Wettasinghe

India gearing up to construct 4 mega ports may not pose any threat to Sri Lanka’s future maritime operations, an industry leader said.

“I personally think that India needs to develop its ports, because they are not up to the standards. Building a port in the East Coast and the West Coast is not going to affect us. I see India developing its ports as an opportunity,” Shippers’ Academy Colombo CEO Rohan Masakorala said.

Foreign media reports said that the Indian Cabinet is to pass a proposal this week to construct a transhipment port in Colachel, Tamil Nadu with a capacity of 50 million tonnes, and another port in Dahanu, Maharashtra at a cost of US$ 2.23 billion.

Proposals on another two ports in Sagar, Maharashtra and in Andhra Pradesh are likely to be sent to Cabinet in March.

“We can’t stop others from building ports. We should get our policies and thinking with regard to shipping right,” Masakorala, who is also a Sri Lanka Shippers Council Past Chairman, said.
He noted that building such a limited number of ports is unlikely to completely cater to India’s expected demand, and spillovers will come to Sri Lanka.

“When China was growing, it was rushing to build ports for millions of containers. Sri Lanka went from the 22nd largest transhipment port to 13th because of shipments to and from China. With the expected 6-7 percent (economic) growth, Indian ports will overflow with cargo,” 
he said.

He added that India would have to go a long way before developing facilities, services and professionals on par with Sri Lanka, making Colombo the preferred regional port.

“Colombo has its own strengths with feeder lines from Pakistan and Bangladesh. Our aim is to be a regional port. We have the geographic advantage, and the lines will be calling the shots. It doesn’t make sense for lines to go up to Chennai,” Masakorala went on to say.

He also noted that Sri Lanka has continued to depend less on India in recent years.

“If you look 20 years ago, India accounted for 60-70 percent of our transhipments. Today it’s 35 percent,” he said.

Masakorala added that the Colombo container traffic will grow by around 7 percent for the next 10 years.

Container traffic in Colombo grew 5.7 percent in 2015 to 5.19 million containers. Transhipment volumes grew by 4.9 percent to 3.97 million containers. Singapore saw a slowdown in traffic as feeder lines in the subcontinent opted for Colombo as the port’s capacity grew last year.

Colombo is the largest container port in South Asia with a capacity to handle 8 million containers annually.

The second largest port in the country situated in Hambantota is serving as a roll on/roll off port for vehicles.