The dramatic recent fire on a container ship off Sri Lanka highlighted the risks involved in the island nation’s ambitions to become one of the world’s busiest maritime hubs.
MV X-Press Pearl burned for 13 days, releasing tons of chemicals and plastics. The sinking ship’s nearly 300 tons of fuel oil may now leak into the Indian Ocean.
How important is Sri Lanka?
Thanks to its geographical location, around 200 container ships and oil tankers sail past every day on the busy routes between Asia, the Middle East and Europe.
But Sri Lanka is also the biggest so-called transshipment hub in South Asia.
Meaning that some of the world’s biggest ships dock in Sri Lanka to load and unload containers.
Colombo, four days by ship from Singapore and four and a half to Dubai, is the only port between those two places deep enough to handle ships.
WHAT ARE ITS PLANS?
Colombo Port now hopes to double its annual handling capacity of 7.2 million containers in four years.
“We are strategically located and we are strategically important,” Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) chairman Daya Ratnayake told AFP.
“But, we have a serious problem here, the problem is (lack of) capacity.”
India is developing a deep-water port at Vizhinjam on its southwest tip and is planning another in the Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal, both of which may steal some of Colombo’s trade.
WHAT DO OTHER COUNTRIES THINK?
Two-thirds of the transshipment cargo going through Sri Lanka is goods going from or to India.
And New Delhi has traditionally seen Colombo as an ally.
However, since a big chunk of what passes through the Indian Ocean is Chinese-made, Beijing has also shown a keen interest in developing Sri Lanka as a key link on its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Since 2014, Colombo Port has been home to a US$500-million Chinese-run deep sea terminal. To pacify New Delhi, this year allowed India to build another new terminal right next door.
“This is how we are balancing,” Ratnayake said. “We as a country must take all this competition to our advantage.”
Source: Channel News Asia