South Asia Maritime and Logistics Forum takes off in grand scale

History was created on 7 September, when two countries of South Asia, India and Sri Lanka private sector industry leaders launched the first ever South Asia Maritime and Logistics Forum (SAML Forum) in Mumbai, India. Over 250 delegates from, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal participated along with participants from Dubai and Singapore. As a first-time event, the enthusiasm from the participants was very high.

The forum is a platform to bring in industry leaders of South Asia to understand the region better and work towards common goals to support trade expansion and improve greater connectivity whereby logistics cost and efficiency could be improved. As the fastest developing economic block in Asia, South Asia now has tremendous opportunity to attract more FDI and improve infrastructure of the maritime nations and landlock nations of the region.

Speaking at the event both Ravi Ramprasad of Maritime Gateway of India and Rohan Masakorala of Colombo International Maritime Conference Events of Sri Lanka who spearheaded the event, said that support from the Sri Lankan and Indian companies and ports were great, they participated in numbers and supported us as being sponsors. Without them believing in our objectives we would have not got started. We want to make sure in the long run they benefit out of our efforts through this forum as they are the catalysts of economic growth and in many cases the unsung heroes of the supply chain, they pointed out.

They went on to say that, The World Bank and Drewry Consultants UK, presented two informative presentations on South Asia. We will use this information and the thoughts of the participants and publish a report as requested by the Shipping Minister of India and share the contents of it with the regional shipping and transport ministries. We hope to use this platform to bring in policy reforms and people in the industry closer so that they have a better understanding and room to expand trade and transport business activity among the region.  

Our responsibility is to promote and make awareness of the region to the world, within a few years we will take this forum as a road show to Europe, Middle East, Far East and other parts of the world. We have got the blessings of the industry and the governments across the region to expand the horizons of South Asia and the start has been fantastic they both said.

The industry participants mentioned that they are committed to SAML Forum as it was the first initiative to bring in the maritime and logistics industry of South Asia towards corporation and networking. They said that they are willing to support such events as it takes a significant effort and coordination to get an event of this nature going. The 2018 event will be likely held in South Asia prior to moving out of the region to promote South Asia as this was the sentiment of the delegates, the organisers said.