Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh

Three quarters of this is a loan from ADB “on the condition the terminals are developed and run by private operators”, he explains.

In all, 75% of the port’s business is transhipment, and the new terminal, the first of three, will have an alongside depth of 18m to serve the megaships on the horizon. However, all has not been plain sailing and the first bidding round, in which PSA and HPH were leading, was cancelled by the government due to legal issues.

HPH then walked away from the table, saying it felt at a ‘disadvantage’ when it found that some elements it’s previous bid had been incorporated into the new Request for Proposals. China Merchant Holdings and local business house Aitken Spence now seem to the preferred parties.

All ports in the country come under the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) which has embarked on a major investment programme including upgrades to its northern ports, a spur to development after the subduing of the area’s notorious Tamil Tigers (LTTE). There is also to be a new deep water port at Hambantota. This will be linked to the demand centre in the western province by the country’s first southern highway, eventually providing an alternative to Colombo.

But the island is oft criticised for a lack of coordination and has separate ministries for land, sea and air carriage, sometimes with different agencies handling different functions within the same mode of transport. And while Columbo has the advantage of a location adjacent to the east west trade routes, as Suren Vakil of BMT India points out, the sudden influx of new developments at the southern tip of India may well provide competition for the port.