South Asia Gateway Terminals surpassing Sri Lanka Ports Authority

CONCERN has been expressed that the state-run Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) operators of Colombo, the Jaya and Unity terminals are losing market share to privately operated South Asia Gateway Terminals (SAGT) since April, reports the Colombo Sunday Times.

SLPA ports have lost out to SAGT terminal in container throughput despite Jaya and Unity terminals' much larger capacity. Privately-owned SAGT had an annual capacity of 1.6 million TEU when it opened in 2000, but can handle 1.9 million TEU today. SLPA ports can handle 2.5 million TEU, but handled only 1.9 million TEU in 2008.

But SLPA chairman PB Wickrema told the Sunday Times this week that while SAGT volumes are higher than the SLPA managed terminals, the SLPA is in the process of attracting new lines and converting two of the four conventional cargo berths into container berths that will be able to accommodate smaller vessels.

Dr Wickrema said SLPA terminals must accept small and large vessels while SAGT docks bigger ships, which means his ports take in less cargo from smaller ships.

Dr Wickrema said the new SLPA management system introduced in May has resulted in a 10 to 15 per cent increase in productivity. "Productivity levels have gone above 22 moves per hour," he said.

He also said that due to the global downturn, some of the SLPA customers were facing problems, "a few of the parties were badly affected." He said he expects SLPA port volumes to increase over the coming months.

Source: Port News