Colombo Port Volumes Surpasses 2mln TEUs

By Aiswarya Lakshmi January 2, 2017

Colombo International Container Terminals (CICT) has reported a throughput of two million TEUs for the 12 months ending 31 December 2016, a year-on-year growth of 28 percent in volume, enabling the Port of Colombo to register overall incremental growth during three consecutive years.

Announcing the milestone achievement, CICT said ULCCs (Ultra Large Container Carriers) and VLCCs (Very large Container Carriers), many of a size that only the Colombo South Terminal is capable of handling, had contributed 70 percent to the volumes it achieved in 2016.

CICT, run by China Merchants Port Holdings, is the first and currently the only deep water terminal in South Asia equipped with facilities to handle the largest vessels afloat.

“The incremental volume handled by CICT was one of the contributors to the overall throughput of the Port of Colombo growing by an estimated 11 percent in 2016, the company said.

CICT General Manager, Commercial and Marketing, Tissa Wickramasinghe said that this historic achievement of 2 million teus was made possible mainly by the synergies developed through its parent company China Merchants Port Holdings.