ECONOMYNEXT – The Chinese built Hambantota International Port (HIP) has surpassed one million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in cumulative container throughput since the commissioning of new quay cranes in 2025, as the Sri Lankan port accelerates investments to expand annual handling capacity to two million TEUs.

The port handled 428,036 TEUs in 2025 and a further 574,196 TEUs so far in 2026, bringing total throughput over the two-year period to 1,002,232 TEUs, HIP said.

The milestone reflected growing confidence among shipping lines and cargo owners in the port’s operations, HIPG Chief Executive Officer Wilson Qu said.

“Crossing one million TEUs is an important achievement for HIP and a strong indication of the confidence our customers are placing in the port,” Qu said.

“Our container growth has been built through close engagement with shipping lines, operational reliability and the ability to respond quickly to changing customer requirements.”

The port’s main container customer, Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), has played a key role in driving volumes, helping HIP achieve a series of operational records this year.

In April, the MSC Marie Leslie set a new single-vessel handling record at Hambantota, registering 7,968 container moves, equivalent to 13,260 TEUs during its port call. The achievement surpassed records set by MSC Ilenia and MSC Ruby in March.

HIP also recorded its highest monthly container throughput in June, handling 80,325 TEUs as disruptions and uncertainty affected major global trade routes.

To accommodate rising demand, the port is implementing a major expansion programme covering berth capacity, yard space, reefer facilities and container-handling equipment.

A central component of the expansion is a 108-million-US-dollar investment in six new quay cranes and 16 rubber-tyred gantry cranes, which are expected to be commissioned by February 2027.

The additional equipment will increase ship-to-shore and yard-handling capacity, improve vessel turnaround times and enable the use of a further 1,300 metres of berth space. The expansion will raise HIP’s total container quay length to nearly two kilometres and increase container yard capacity by 30 percent.

HIP Chief Operations Officer Tommy Yang said the investments were designed to support future growth while maintaining operational efficiency.

“The one-million-TEU milestone shows that HIP’s container business is moving into a new stage of growth,” Yang said.

“Our investment strategy is focused on developing capacity ahead of demand while maintaining operational efficiency and financial sustainability.”

The port said the upgrades would create the scale needed to reach its long-term target of handling two million TEUs annually, strengthening Hambantota’s position as an emerging regional container gateway. (Colombo/Oct4/2026)

ECONOMYNEXT – The Vitra Design Museum, Germany, in partnership with the Geoffrey Bawa Trust, recently opened a major retrospective of acclaimed Sri Lanka architect Geoffrey Bawa’s work.

Geoffrey Bawa: Architecture for the Senses brings together over 250 exhibits, including drawings, models, furniture, historic footage, artworks, and photographs by Bawa.

The exhibition also includes newly commissioned works by photographer Iwan Baan that capture the lived-in quality of some of Bawa’s most iconic buildings.

With a scenography designed by architect Lina Ghotmeh, the exhibition will transform the Vitra Design Museum into an immersive environment that evokes the sensual power of Bawa’s practice.

The exhibition officially opened on September 25 with a talk attracting an audience of over 450, and an opening day turnout of more than 500 people.

With a career spanning five decades and over 200 projects, Geoffrey Bawa (1919–2003) was one of the most influential twentieth-century architects in Asia.

His architecture blends the principles of modernism with the rich architectural history of Sri Lanka, forming a distinctive oeuvre that includes private houses, schools, hotels, and factories, as well as the National Parliament.

“Geoffrey Bawa’s work occupies a unique position in the history of modern architecture. Rooted in Sri Lanka’s multiple architectural traditions, Bawa’s work offers a compelling alternative to the western narratives that have long shaped the architectural canon. Bawa’s relevance is just being rediscovered, and the exhibition will bring him to a wider attention,” says Mateo Kries, Director of the Vitra Design Museum.

“Bawa’s sensitive response to the cultural, political, and geographical conditions in which he worked, his deep understanding of how architecture engages the senses, his close collaborations with local artisans and social enterprises, and his vision of building with nature rather than against it make him an enduring inspiration for architects and designers today,” adds Johan Deurell, co-curator of the exhibition.

Bawa has been labelled a pioneer of Tropical Modernism, but the exhibition presents a more multi- layered perspective on Bawa’s work than this categorisation might suggest.

By highlighting Bawa’s engagement with collaboration, ecology, and the cultural context of architecture, the exhibition foregrounds him as an innovator of socially responsible and sustainable building practice, whose approaches are more relevant today than ever.

The exhibition includes a large selection of objects, models, and documents from the Geoffrey Bawa Trust, alongside artworks by Ena de Silva, Laki Senanayake, and Barbara Sansoni, archival images by Sebastian Posingis and Dominic Sansoni, and newly commissioned photographs by Iwan Baan as well as films by Kavindu Sivaraj and Ruvin de Silva. Together, these works provide a contemporary perspective on the intensity of Bawa’s buildings and their powerful natural environments.

A co-production of the Vitra Design Museum, M+, and the Wüstenrot Foundation, in collaboration with the Geoffrey Bawa Trust, Geoffrey Bawa: Architecture for the Senses will be at the Vitra Design Museum in Germany until 28 February 2027, before travelling to M+ in Hong Kong, where it will be shown from June 2027.

The Vitra Design Museum numbers among the world’s leading museums of design. It is dedicated to the research and presentation of design, past and present, and examines design’s relationship to architecture, art and everyday culture. M+ is Asia’s global museum of contemporary visual culture. Located in Hong Kong, it is dedicated to collecting, exhibiting, and interpreting visual art, design and architecture, moving image, and Hong Kong visual culture of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The Wüstenrot Foundation is dedicated to the preservation and development of both tangible and intangible cultural heritage. The foundation’s goal is to generate momentum for new ways of thinking and acting by developing and disseminating practice-oriented models.

ECONOMYNEXT – The absence of a staff-level agreement does not mean that the International Monetary Fund’s Extended Fund Facility (EFF) programme is off track, IMF Resident Representative for Sri Lanka Martha Tesfaye Woldemichael has said.

Discussions can require additional time to reach agreement on key policies and parameters she told the Sampath Bank Economic Forum 2026.

Sri Lanka’s transition from economic stabilisation to its next phase of sustainable growth took centre stage at the event which brought together policymakers, economists and business leaders.

The seventh review of Sri Lanka’s Extended Fund Facility (EFF) programme is ongoing.

Woldemichael said almost 85% of the total program objectives of the current programme were achieved, and highlighted the need to continue the reform agenda.

However, she also addressed concerns surrounding proposed amendments to Sri Lanka’s Anti-Corruption Act.

Woldemichael noted that the IMF supports reviewing the legislation based on implementation experience, “while raising concerns that some proposed amendments could weaken transparency and accountability, particularly in relation to public access to asset declarations, redaction rules and the scope of asset declarations”.

The IMF has similarly stated that preserving the integrity of the anti-corruption legislative framework remains critical to public trust.

The next challenge is moving from stabilisation to transformation through reforms that improve the business environment, attract investment, expand exports and generate durable growth, Woldemichael said.

The Forum also featured insights from Central bank of Sri Lanka Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe, and Hiran Cabraal, Independent Non-Executive Director of Sampath Bank.

The panel discussion, moderated by Tharindu Abeywardana, Chief Economist and Head of Research at Sampath Bank, examined Sri Lanka’s growth prospects and the implications of global economic shifts.

Sri Lanka’s progress now requires collective action, Sampath Bank Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Sanjaya Gunawardana said. (Colombo/Oct4/2026)

Deloitte Sri Lanka brought together board directors and business leaders for “Cyber Resilience Starts at the Top: The Board’s Strategic Role in Building a Resilient Organization,” a discussion on how boards can better prepare organisations for complex cyber disruption. The programme explored organisational resilience, cyber readiness, risk quantification and crisis response, and included an interactive cyber wargaming exercise designed to simulate a real incident and help leaders test decision-making and preparedness before a crisis occurs.

Opening the discussion, Malinda Boyagoda, Partner – Audit and Assurance, Assurance Leader and Industry Leader for Financial Services, Deloitte Sri Lanka and Maldives, placed cyber resilience within the wider context of disruption. His session considered risks arising from geopolitical uncertainty, cyber incidents, AI-enabled fraud, vulnerabilities in suppliers and partners, and growing regulatory expectations.

Malinda distinguished risk management from resilience: while risk management aims to reduce exposure, resilience is about keeping essential services running and recovering effectively when disruption occurs. He noted, “Cyber resilience is not simply about preventing disruption. It is about ensuring that critical services can continue, decisions can be made with confidence, and the organisation can recover and learn when disruption occurs.” Board members were advised to clarify responsibilities, test severe scenarios and seek evidence of preparedness rather than rely only on reassurance.

Building on this, Mayuran Palanisamy, Partner and Leader, Digital Trust and Privacy, Deloitte South Asia, focused on the difference between confidence and genuine readiness. He highlighted that confidence in an organisation’s cyber preparedness, including assurances provided by management, should be tested and questioned by the Board of Directors. By seeking evidence that response and recovery plans work in practice, boards can gain greater comfort that the organisation is genuinely prepared for a cyber incident.

Highlighting the role of leadership in strengthening cyber readiness, Mayuran said, “Cyber resilience requires boards to go beyond oversight and take a more active role in execution. This means asking management the right questions about the cyber strategy, ensuring there is flexibility in funding when risks emerge, and making cyber oversight a consistent part of the board agenda.”

The discussion then moved to the financial impact of cyber risk. Rukshan Bharatha, Partner, Controls Assurance, Deloitte Sri Lanka and Maldives, introduced Cyber Risk Quantification (CRQ) as a way of translating technical cyber threats into financial terms for board and leadership decisions. Rather than relying only on high, medium or low ratings, CRQ helps organisations understand what a cyber event could mean in monetary terms.
Rukshan explained, “If we want to understand cyber risk, we need to quantify it. Cyber Risk Quantification converts qualitative measures into financial values, giving boards a more tangible view of potential impact and a stronger basis for decisions on investment and the level of risk the organisation is prepared to carry.” He outlined how business exposure, incident scenarios and existing security controls can be used with statistical modelling to estimate potential losses and support decisions on cyber investment, regulatory requirements and insurance.

The final segment, led by Bhawna Pahuja, Associate Director, Cyber Defense & Resilience, Deloitte India, brought the earlier discussions to life through an interactive cyber crisis exercise. Participants were placed in a fictional financial institution facing an escalating cyber incident and asked to make time-sensitive decisions on containment, business continuity, communications, regulatory engagement and ransom response.

The exercise was designed to reflect the uncertainty and pressure leadership teams may face during a real cyber incident, with participants making decisions based on limited information as the situation evolved. It demonstrated how quickly a cyber issue can develop into an organisation-wide crisis, affecting customers, regulators, investors, reputation and operations. The session highlighted the importance of clear crisis roles, tested recovery plans and leadership teams that are prepared to make informed decisions under pressure.

Together, the sessions highlighted that cyber resilience is an organisation-wide responsibility, supported by informed board involvement, clear measures of risk, tested response plans and decisive leadership. Reflecting on the broader message, Vengadasalam Balagobi, Cyber and Technology Risk Head, and Information Security Leader, Deloitte Sri Lanka and Maldives, noted, “Cybersecurity is about protecting the organisation. Cyber resilience is about ensuring it can continue to operate, recover and adapt when disruption occurs. Organisations that prepare, test and learn before an incident are better positioned to respond with speed, confidence and clarity.”

ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka’s Central Bank bought a net US$64.2 million in September, official data showed, amid depreciation pressure on the local currency that touched a four-year low in the May this year.

The rupee fell 0.9 percent in September, the Central Bank has said.

The Central Bank bought US$85 million from the domestic foreign exchange market in September while selling US$20.8 million that same month, official data showed.

The Bank sold over US$211 million net in May for the first time in 22 months.

The Central Bank has net bought US$1,548.8 million in the first nine months of 2026 following a net purchase of US$2 billion last year.

The rupee was under high downward pressure in May as the imports bill for fuel rose unusually high following the Middle Eastern escalation amid continued demand for dollars to buy new vehicles.

However, it reversed course and gained in the next two months before falling in September.

The Central Bank has been buying dollars aggressively from the market to boost foreign currency reserves to meet the targets the country agreed with the IMF under the US$3 billion external fund facility and to repay the island nation’s multilateral and bilateral loans.

The Central Bank’s aggressive reserve building comes ahead of the repayment of foreign debts to sovereign bond holders in April 2028. (Colombo/October 03/2026)