Colombo Port Containers Handling Grows by 11.78pct Year-on-Year. SLPA Handles a Record 205,539 TEU in January 2011

09th February 2011, www.island.lk

The Port of Colombo saw volumes increased by 11.78 percent year-on-year in January 2011 while the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) handled its highest ever monthly container throughput in January 2011 at 205,539 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units), which was 4,327 TEUs higher than the previous record of 201,212 TEUs in August 2010.

The 205,539 TEUs handled by SLPA in January 2011 was against 165,400 TEUs handled in January 2010, which is 40,139 TEUs more, or a 24.2 percent growth.

The total containers handled by the Port of Colombo for the month of January 2011 reached 366,971 TEUs compared with 328,290 TEUs handled for the same period in 2010, which is 38,681TEUs more handled this year, a growth of 11.78%.

"In the year 2004, the Port of Colombo handled 2 million TEU of containers which has grown to 4 million TEU by 2010. It is expected to be 10 million TEU by 2020, when the port will generate 40 percent of the government income. Last year, the state-run JCT of SLPA reached a historic record throughput of 2 million TEUs in eleven months," the SLPA said in a statement yesterday (9).

SLPA Managing Director Capt. Nihal Keppetipola said performance at the Port of Colombo was erratic or mediocre during early years, when ad-hoc and inconsistent policies were being implemented with no coherent vision, and that led to the Port of Colombo being relegated to a lower ranking in the global container market.

"However, from 2007, the JCT management had the vision to focus and bring back the Port of Colombo to its current status as a major regional hub-port. It is with a sense of great pleasure and pride, that I place on record the fact that the world’s second largest shipping line MSC which had abandoned the Port of Colombo during that period in favor of other competing hub ports, is now back with us once again," Capt. Nihal Keppetipola said.

Dr. P.B.Wickrama is the Chairman of SLPA.

Related Info :
• Colombo Port Jaya Container Terminal Handles Two Million TEUs in 11 Months. Four Million TEU Mark to Reach before Year End