The Government will expand the ports of Galle, Trincomalee and Kankesanthurai which will be geared to accommodating the increased exports to both regional and global destinations.
State Minister of Container Warehouse Facilities, Container Yards, Port Facilities, and Boat and Shipping Industry Development Jayantha Samaraweera told the local media that the expansion of these three ports would be useful in the light of the Ports of Colombo and Hambantota would be congested in the future.
He also said that one of the top priorities of the Government was also to use the rail transport network for the transport of containers which would ease the congestion in both the City of Colombo, the outstations and the immediate Colombo suburbs as well, which was a proposal which was conceived by the Strategic Enterprise Development Agency (SEMA) around two decades ago.
Another area of interest which has also caught the attention of the Government would be the development of warehouses in the Colombo suburbs such as Ratmalana and Peliyagoda and outstations such as Veyangoda, Kurunegala, Deniyaya et al.
He said that the network will also help the storage of exportable products until they are transported to reach their due destinations. These warehouses will also be able to accommodate the containers which will be transported through the railway systems which will also slash the transport costs and transit times as well.
He said that these warehouses could also store some of the coconuts and value added coconut based products which will be based for exports.
Similarly, tea and value added products which will be manufactured by the teas grown by Small Holders in the Southern belt such as Deniyaya, Elpitiya, Galle and others could be stored within the warehouses there and could be exported from the Galle Port without even having to go through the inconvenience of transporting those cargoes to Colombo.
The Minister also added that the construction of these warehouses will be done on the basis of Private- Public Sector Partnerships in which the private sector component could be even Foreign Direct Investment or originating from the local private sector.
The State Minister also explained that the boat industry was also going to be developed on a three- fold basis. One was for the tourism industry, the other was for the benefit of the local transport industry and the third was for export. This also would be also done on the basis of Private – Public sector partnerships where the private sector partnerships could also attract foreign investments.
