Sri Lanka Port Receives its Largest Container Ship Call

The Port of Colombo received a call this week from the APL Chongqing, the largest container ship to call on the Sri Lankan port and the first of 32 vessels the carrier plans to deploy by 2014.

The 1,148-foot, 10,000 20-foot container unit ship called on the state-owned Jaya Container Terminal as part of APL’s Asia-Europe SCX service. The ship is the largest in the Singapore-based carrier’s fleet.

The westbound SCX rotation is: Ningbo, Shanghai, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Hong Kong, Chiwan, Singapore, Colombo, Southampton, Hamburg and Rotterdam.

Colombo has three terminals, including state-run Unity Container Terminal and DP World’s South Asia Gateway Terminal, with a combined capacity of 4.5 million TEUs. The port authority this month broke ground on a $450 million South Harbor Transshipment Container Terminal, which is expected to open by April.