Shipping industry experts have expressed concern that the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA)-controlled ports in Colombo, the Jaya and Unity terminals are losing its market leadership to privately operated South Asia Gateway Terminals since April 2009 due to decreased productivity and efficiency.
Since April of this year, the SLPA ports have lost out to SAGT in terms of the number of twenty-foot equivalent units (teu’s) even though the Jaya and Unity terminals have a much larger annual capacity. One expert pointed out that SAGT which began operations in 2000 has an annual capacity of 1.6 million teu’s but will most likely handle close to 1.9 million teu’s in 2009. The SLPA ports have a capacity of 2.5 million teu’s but handled only 1.9 million teu’s in 2008.
However, SLPA Chairman Dr. P.B. Wickrema told the Sunday Times FT 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 ino container berths that will be able to accommodate smaller vessels.
Dr. Wickrema explained that at present, the SLPA terminals must accept small and large vessels while SAGT only accepts large vessels. Smaller ships which contain less cargo take the same time for berthing and sailing as the larger vessels.
Dr. Wickrema added that a new management system which was introduced in May 2009 has seen around a 10% to 15% increase in productivity. “Productivity levels have gone above 22 moves per hour.”
He also said that due to the global economic crisis, 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. |
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