COLOMBO: Situated at the cusp of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, barely a degree north of the equator, Sri Lanka has a geographical location that port planners pay fortunes for.
Yet for all the strategic plans drawn up over the past three decades, the island has progressed little beyond its role as a transshipment port –more than 80% of the cargo on ships docked in Sri Lanka is never unloaded here, but transshipped onward.
Most of this cargo is bound for Indian ports, through terminals run by Sri Lanka’s state-owned Ports Authority, the China Merchants-backed Colombo International Container Terminals, and India’s Adani Group-linked Colombo West International Terminal.