Category: Shipping and Transport

July 08, 2009 (LBO) – A consortium made up of Sri Lankan conglomerate Aitken Spence and China Merchant Holdings are the sole bidders to design and build a new container terminal in Colombo port, officials said.South Asia Gateway Terminals, which operates Colombo’s private container terminal, and China Harbour Engineering Company, which is building a port […]

July 05, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lankan shipyard Colombo Dockyard said it has laid the keel for construction of the third Multipurpose Platform Supply Vessel for Greatship India.The vessels can undertake multi-purpose roles such as transportation of pipes, fresh water, diesel oil, bulk cement, stores, equipment, moving men and materials between platforms and shore, and […]

July 02, 2009 (LBO) – Lanka Maritime Services, a Sri Lankan supplier of ship fuel, said it has acquired an 8,800 DWT double-hull tanker to supply bunkers to ships calling at Colombo port.“This was to avoid loss of foreign exchange by way of payment of demurrage on chartered vessels and also reduce expenses in order […]

June 29, 2009 (LBO) – The Sri Lankan government wants to attract investments for ship building, and cement and fertilizer manufacturing at a new port being built in southern Hambantota, a senior official said.Sri Lanka Ports Authority chairman Priyath Wickrama said construction work on the harbour, less than half-an-hour’s deviation from the main shipping route […]

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 […]