Joint venture sets Sri Lankan port buzzing again

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In 2008 and 2009, major container ports in the United States experienced negative growth, and throughput growth at leading ports in Europe and China also fell sharply. The throughput growth rate at Guangzhou Port in Guangdong dropped to 2.9 percent in the third quarter of 2008. Such low growth was unprecedented in the port's hundreds of years of history.

At the time, the port industry's enthusiasm for investing in the Port of Colombo, which was then open for international bidding, was virtually non-existent, with many companies withdrawing their earlier bids. In 2009, only CMG sent a tender to the Sri Lankan government.

Hu Jianhua, vice-president of CMG, said everyone at the company was concerned that the sluggish international economic and trade situation would damage the port industry after the financial crisis.

But Hu believed the crisis was only cyclical, and as a result, it was necessary for China to help Sri Lanka rebuild its economy.

His assessment proved to be correct. In 2010, the crisis eased and several major international port giants proposed better offers to the Sri Lankan government, hoping to re-tender for the project.

"But the Sri Lankan government insisted on handing over the project to China," Hu said.

He said there were two reasons for this. "First, our bidding process is legally compliant and the bid proposal was impeccable and transparent. Second, Sri Lanka respects the spirit of contract, which also proved that we had chosen the right partner to cooperate with."

Soon, the ancient Port of Colombo began to revive.

Under the joint operation between China and Sri Lanka, container throughput at the port increased from 4.18 million TEUs to 5.74 million TEUs between 2012 and 2016. This growth was fueled by CICT.

In 2014, the port became the fastest-growing in the world as its throughput increased by 14 percent. In 2015, this grew by 7 percent, at a time when the global shipping market was in a downturn.

In 2016, CICT's throughput reached 2.02 million TEUs. Now, the century-old port has regained its position as one of the busiest in the region.