Colombo Port 13th best in connectivity in the world

The Port of Colombo has improved by five places in the global Best Connectivity rankings to 13th place as of end of Q4 2017, from 18th place previously.

According to the rankings, the Port of Colombo is also the best connectivity port in South Asia. The Drewry Global Container Port Connectivity Index recently announced the top 20 ports with new entries of Jebel Ali and Algeciras to the listing for the 4th quarter of 2017. 

Shipping consultancy Drewry launched a regular, bespoke index of port connectivity in this latest edition of its Ports & Terminals Insight report with the aim to demonstrate how well-connected the world’s container Ports are. The index divides the world into seven major zones, and measures each port’s breadth of connectivity by the number of regions served and how many mainline services call per week. 

Routes that involve transshipment are not counted, nor are intra-regional services within a region. 

“The Drewry Global Container Port Connectivity Index, that signifies the importance of port connectivity as important as size or scale, consists of two variables, the number of mainline services calling at each port per week and the regions in the world to which each port is directly linked. Having the widest possible range of direct service is a significant competitive advantage for all ports,” the report said. 

At a recent meeting with all terminal operators and stakeholders of the Port of Colombo held at the Ports and Shipping Ministry, Ports and Shipping Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe said that the Port exceeded the 6.1 million TEU target in collaboration with all terminals at the Port of Colombo, and the Port expects to reach the 7 million TEU target by the end this year. 

“We will take the new initiative forward to promote the Port of Colombo internationally, together with all stake holders and to attract more new shipping lines that work in alliances to the Port,” Samarasinghe added.

Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the terminals of the Port of Colombo to operate collectively to promote the Port of Colombo. The meeting had been convened with the initiative of Minister Samarasinghe and with the participation of SLPA Chairman Dr. Parakrama Dissanayake. 

Expressing his views at the occasion, Dr. Dissanayake said that the terminals would compete with each other but would also co-operate with each other moving between competition and co-operation. “On the Asia to Europe sector, there are 17 loops of which only 03 are calling at Colombo. Therefore, obviously, we have challenges to ensure that collectively we should attract more loops into the Port of Colombo. This means, we have to go beyond the partisan approach of promoting our terminals to protect the Port of Colombo,” he added.

The top management officials of the three terminals of the Port of Colombo, which includes the State-owned Jaya Container Terminal (JCT) and the two terminals that run under Public Private Partnership (PPP), the South Asia Gateway Terminal (SAGT) and the Colombo International Container Terminal (CICT), also attended the meeting.