Sri Lanka's Colombo port registers transshipment growth

21 Mar '24

2 min read

Pic: Adobe Stock

Insights

In February, the Port of Colombo saw transshipment volume growth accelerate for third consecutive month, with 29.1 per cent year-on-year increase.
This growth is primarily driven by ongoing disruptions in Red Sea.
Data from IMF's PortWatch underlined in first two months of 2024, trade volume through the Suez Canal went down by 50 per cent Y-o-Y.

The ongoing disruptions in the Red Sea seem to have benefitted Port of Colombo, which registered 29.1 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) increase in transshipment volume in February, making it the third consecutive month to witness growth in transshipment volume.

This is as per media reports, which added this February the volume of transshipment handled by Port of Colombo reached 528,348 TEUs even if the port witnessed double digit transshipment volume growth since December 2023.

Reports further added in December last year, the transshipment volumes handled by the port went up by 10.4 per cent Y-o-Y to 515,404 TEUs while in in January this year, it accelerated 25.5 per cent Y-o-Y to 562,527 TEUs.

The overall container throughput at the port in February this year also witnessed a robust growth, rising by 32.9 per cent Y-o-Y to 646,407 TEUs even as transshipment volumes accounted for a substantial 82 per cent of the total throughput.

Meanwhile, data from the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) PortWatch underlined that in the first two months of 2024, trade volume through the Suez Canal went down by 50 per cent Y-o-Y even as almost nearly half of all cargo ships and tankers diverted to alternative routes around the Cape of Good Hope following attacks on commercial ships in the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DR)