Category: Shipping and Transport

June 28, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s state-run railways is discussing a deal with Pakistan Railways to rehabilitate track damaged in an internal war and upgrade passenger coaches, a media report said. The state utility is over-staffed and is a big burden on the people who do not use rail, losing 4,553 rupees in 2008, […]

June 27, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lankan freight forwarders have complained that the lack of Customs automation is a serious obstacle to improving efficiency of trade and achieving the island’s aim of becoming a logistics hub. Waidyaratne said the freight forwards association has decided to approach the government at the highest level and prepare a […]

June 26, 2009 (LBO) – A contract to build a new container terminal in Sri Lanka’s Colombo port, despite delays, will be awarded before the year-end, and the facility will be assured of cargo given Indian growth, a senior official said.Sri Lanka Ports Authority chairman Priyath Bandu Wickrama said that although India had begun expanding […]

June 15, 2009 (LBO) – The Sri Lankan government has decided to call for fresh tenders for the Greater Colombo Urban Transport Development Project as previous bids were too high. The project, meant to ease traffic jams in Colombo, is funded by a 223 million US dollar loan from Japan, the finance ministry said in […]

June 08, 2009 (LBO) – A container terminal in Colombo port in which Sri Lanka’s John Keells Holdings (JKH) group has a big stake said volumes have recovered after five consecutive months of falls.South Asia Gateway Terminals (SAGT), a key source of profit for JKH which has a 42.2 percent stake in the facility, handled […]

June 06, 2009 (LBO) – Ships calling at Colombo port are still experiencing delays owing to problems in a new computerised terminal management system, shipping agents said. Colombo is south Asia’s transhipment hub port with better cranes than other ports in the region but its computer systems had not been updated for some time. The […]

June 03, 2009 (LBO) – The Sri Lankan government has extended for the second time the deadline for proposals from investors to build and operate a new deep-water container terminal in Colombo port.Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) officials said the deadline for bids is now July 8. Previously, the government had extended the deadline to […]

June 02, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Mercantile Shipping Company said it made a loss in the 2008-09 financial year during which it sold off old ships and firmed up orders for new ones. The company said a voluntary retirement was offered in the March quarter and that based on the number of applications and […]

May 30, 2009 (LBO) – Ships calling at Colombo port are experiencing delays owing to teething problems in a new Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) computer system to manage its container terminals, shipping agents said.But the SLPA has told port users that it was working to solve the problems with the terminal management system and […]

May 29, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka could make use of the global slump in shipping to rebuild its national merchant fleet as ships without work are now going cheap, the island’s navy chief Wasantha Karannagoda has said. The end of the 25-year-old ethnic war gives the country an opportunity to revive its merchant navy, […]

May 28, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lankan ship builder Colombo Dockyard said net profit for the March 2009 quarter shot up 112 percent to 519 million rupees from 245 million rupees a year ago.A platform support vessel for the same Indian customer – the first of an order of four – is now under construction. […]

May 25, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is to lobby Lloyd’s of London to remove a war risk tag on the country which kept insurance premiums high, following defeat of Tamil Tigers by the military last week, a media report said. The Island newspaper said Sri Lanka is classified as a ‘region of war’ by […]