Local investors are most welcome to invest in East Container Terminal: SLPA chair

A ship berthed at the East Container Terminal, yesterday. The terminal has been developed to its present operating capacity by the Sri Lanka Ports Authority.

by Sanath Nanayakkare

Local investors will get the pride of place to invest and operate the East Container Terminal (ECT) in the Port of Colombo, and the most credible proof for that is quite obvious as South Asia Gateway Terminals (SAGT), a Sri Lankan owned company is already operating a terminal single-handedly without any foreign stake in its business. General (Retd) Daya Ratnayake, SLPA chairman said yesterday.

He said so responding to a question posed by the media whether the government is not too keen to hand over the operations of the controversial ECT to a local investor.

“SAGT is a public private partnership container terminal in Sri Lanka, which provides a competitive best in-class service to the shipping community in the world, and any local investor can come forward and do exactly the same thing and gain from it,” he said.

He went on to say that is exactly the thing the government would welcome as the policy of the government is to give lucrative investment opportunities to local investors above anyone else.

“The government doesn’t have any plans to sell the country’s assets to another country. Nothing like that is happening. SLPA has built the ECT to its present capacity. The terminal was designed to be 1,300 meters long. By January 2015, 430 meters had been built and necessary equipment had been ordered. Somehow those approvals were removed by the last government and development of ECT stalled. Yahapalana government signed an MOU with India and Japan to operate the ECT. The current government’s policy is not to sell these assets. Last government had planned to obtain a loan from Japan and build it. The present administration has decided not to obtain any loans or to sell it to another country. The latest situation is; the Cabinet has appointed two committees. One to study, review and report how to raise funds to build the East Terminal and how to start and operate it. The second committee is tasked with discussing with India and our other partner institutes and companies and decide on the best solution to get it off the ground at its fullest capacity. When these two reports come the government will take the next step regarding the development of ECT,” SLPA chairman said.