Sri Lanka Ports Authority gains early profit from new terminal

Sri Lanka Ports Authority gains early profit from new terminal

Apr 21, 2015 09:39 AM GMT+0530 | 0 Comment(s)

COLOMBO (EconomyNext) - Sri Lanka Ports Authority has begun earning profits in the first year from its stake in a new Chinese-built deep-water container terminal in Colombo port, an official said.

SLPA Chairman Lakdas Panagoda said Colombo International Container Terminals Ltd., (CICT), a joint venture between China Merchants Holdings (International) Co., Ltd. (CMHI) and SLPA, was doing very well in its container handling business.

"We only have a 15 percent share in CICT which has brought us in a year something like two million US dollars in our share of profit," he said.

"CICT have done extremely well. They operate it in a very businesslike manner. We need to learn from them," Panagoda said in an interview.

"Within a year they have done much better than they expected. I think the potential is very high. They have very high expectations. They have the backing of a huge company - CMHI."

China Merchants Holdings (International) Co., listed in the Hong Kong stock exchange, has an 85 percent stake in Colombo International Container Terminals, which has an annual capacity of 2.4 million containers.

CICT, which China Merchants Holdings International managing director Hu Jianhua has said is the group's first overseas greenfield project and a testing ground for its global aspirations, handled 690,000 twenty-foot standard containers in 2014.

The terminal, opened in April last year, is projected to handle over a million containers this year.

CHMI operates ports in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan as well as in Africa from where container cargo can be transhipped by feeder vessels through CICT's Colombo facility.

CMHI also bought a big stake in Terminal Link, a company which owns 15 container terminals in eight countries.

"They (CMHI) have the feeder potential from those places. They are very hopeful they can improve their business quite rapidly," Panagoda said.

CMHI handled a total of 80.8 million containers in 2014, up 13.4 percent from the year before, according to its annual results announced last month.