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Colombo Port among world’s best 25

The Colombo Port has been ranked among the world's best 25, according to the Alphaliner rankings in 2017. The secret behind the success is the building of a good business environment, claims Ports and Shipping Minister Arjuna Ranatunga.

"The private sector has been engaged in businesses with the Colombo Port along with the Sri Lanka Ports Authority. In the previous era these institutions were not united. But under the present government we were able to introduce a common business plan for these institutions.

Through this new method we have been able to unite all stakeholders to develop the Colombo Port, while protecting its unique identity. Thereby, all the stakeholders have contributed to develop the Colombo Port working as a single team.

In addition to that, a project is being implemented for the infrastructure development in the Colombo Port. I believe that the Colombo Port will be ranked among the World's best 20, in the next year as a result of this project." Minister Ranathunga added.
He explained that a good environment has been created in the Colombo Port to carry out international trading activities and all transactions with transparency.

"All the ports which carry out container operations are included in the Alphaliner rankings. In this list, the Colombo Port was ranked 27th in 2014 and to 26th in 2015. The Colombo Port operated 5.2 million containers in 2015. In 2016 it handled up to 5.7 million with an increase of 10.6 per cent.

There has also been an increase in the depth of access to the Colombo Port, the depth of terminals, expansion of terminals, increase in the number of terminal operations and it has opened the gate for entry of the world's largest vessels. These developments have created a positive impact on the Colombo Port that has have paved the way for it to remain high on the rankings", he said.