The Minister said these facts in a
discussion held to announce targets to the officers about the development work
of the Ministry for 2024.The Minister said that the Sri Lanka Ports Authority
earned 70 billion rupees and the airport company earned 47 billion rupees in
2023 and said that it is his goal to increase the income of these two
institutions by 50 billion rupees in 2024.
Accordingly, it is currently planned to start operations
at the eastern terminal in June to increase the container operation capacity of
the port.
Minister de Silva emphasized that since
eight new air services are scheduled to arrive at Katunayake Airport in 2024,
the terminal will be modernized at a cost of Rs.8 billion to reduce the
passenger traffic in the existing terminal.