Shipping: Sri Lanka’s ouster of foreign companies was to Singapore’s gain

Attempts by Sri Lanka to become a maritime and logistics hub in the region has been stalled owing to some governments chasing out foreign companies after the advent of nationalisation setting in, changing the country's ‘open economy’ to a ‘closed economy’.
Expressing the above, Rohan Masakorala, Chairman, Advisory Committee on Logistics, Export Development Board (EDB) said, “forgetting the past is repeating the past”, enumerating a discussion on the historical perspective on shipping in Sri Lanka from a closed economy to an open economy, 1970 onwards.
He was speaking at the opening of the workshop on ‘EU-Sri Lanka trade related assistance – National Public Private Dialogue on Maritime Logistics and Transport Reform held on Tuesday at the Galle Face Hotel, Colombo.
He related the story of how Sri Lanka lost a golden opportunity of becoming the energy and oil hub in the region which opportunity Singapore got. 
“If you look back from 1977 Sri Lanka started export import economy. We went to transshipment, now we have to go to the area we are expanding to become the global maritime capital, but we are not at all there, not even among the first 30,” he said.
He indicated that the Greater Colombo Economic Commission (GCEC) became the Board of Investment which allowed foreign garment companies to the KFTZ and in 1982 transshipment was opened.
Port liberalization came in 1999 and the commercial hub concept came in 2013, he pointed out, adding that companies like Expolanka, Hayleys, etc are investing in the country. When the change of government came, it was announced that Sri Lanka would become the logistics and maritime hub. “We are not there at all in being the Indian Ocean hub in 2025,” he said. 
He showed a slide of Trincomalee oil tanks and said: “Since the British built it long years back it remains the same and subsequently it was nationalized and in 1961 the oil industry in the country was nationalized”.
The British American Oil Company was here and wanted to continue operations and set up an oil refinery, but Sri Lanka said: “You please get out, we are setting up of our own and that was the beginning of the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation”.
He said Singapore has the world’s biggest refinery and is the leader of energy and in the case of LPG, LNG too, in this part of the world and continued to be the energy hum with then Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yee deciding to allow foreign companies to set in. 
He indicated that Singapore is number one in the world in bunker sales, because of one man’s vision to open the country to foreign companies.
“What are we left with – we all know the status of the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation – we do not want competition, and where we are and where Singapore is now and we are not even among the global 400 top maritime bunker supplying nations”. (QP)