The Sri Lankan ports of Colombo, Hambantota and Galle have little or no deviation cost for ships traversing the East West Main Sea Route (MSR) and best suited for landing cargo than any other port in the region.

MSR between the Far East and Europe largest and busiest maritime trading lane in the world

MSR between the Far East and Europe is the largest and busiest maritime trading lane in the world. Like Singapore and Tanjung Pelepas in the Straits of Malacca, Sri Lanka sits bang on the East-West MSR.

An estimated 650+ ships pass by Sri Lanka along the MSR daily, an  indication of the potential that the island nation could reap, Romesh David Chief Executive officer at South Asia Gateway terminal in the Port of Colombo was quoted by the Sri Lankan media.

In 2019, 12-15 ships on average called ports in Sri Lanka, 90% of ships called Colombo port

Of this 4,708 ships called at all ports in Sri Lanka in 2019-an average of 12-15 ships per day. 90 percent of these ships called at the port of Colombo and 85 percent of which were container ships.

He was speaking at an awareness program on Sri Lanka's potential on Logistics and supplyu chain organized by the Sri Lankan Export development board at Colombo recently

On ‘Port of Colombo-opportunities for Sri Lanka’, he said the Colombo Port is already a well-established hub among global shipping lines for container transshipment. It is also reasonably well established as a location for boarding and disembarking of sea Marshals. It is however well established for many other aspects that make up a maritime hub and are generally associated with competing with transshipment hubs such as Singapore and Dubai.

He future added that Sri Lankan missions should look for foreign direct investment opportunities especially in freight forwarding and logistics service providers, large scale warehousing and logistics parks, ship crew companies, maritime law firms and cold chain operations.