ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka is looking to raise charges and get more revenue from port services, Ports and Shipping Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe said.
"Without compromising competition we will revise charges," he told reporters in Colombo.
"We haven’t revised in years. Other countries have revised charges and increased their revenue from ports. We will do the same."
Samarasinghe said the exact increase in charges will be decided after discussions with the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA).
Charges will be increased for SLPA and Jaya Containers Terminal Pvt Ltd. services.
Sri Lanka’s Colombo port is a transshipment hub and gets most of the business from Indian traffic.
In the first nine months of 2018, transshipment volumes grew 19.4 percent to 4.2 million twenty foot equivalent units (TEUs) central bank data showed.
Total containers, including for domestic trading rose 14.9 percent to 5.223 million units. (Colombo/Nov07/2018)