Gautam Adani meets Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe to discuss about Colombo Port

NEW DELHI : A dani Group Chairman Gautam Adani held a meeting with visiting Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe to discuss multiple projects in the island nation. The discussions included the development of the ColomboPortWest Container Terminal (WCT), the industrialist said. Wickremesinghe came onatwo-dayvisittoIndia.

Adani Ports and Special Economic Zones Ltd (APSEZ), a key subsidiary of the diversified Adani Group, in March 2021 received a Letter of Intent (LOI) from Sri Lankan authorities for the development and operations of WestContainerTerminal(WCT)inColombo.

APSEZ will partner with JohnKeellsHoldingsPLC, Sri Lanka’s largest diversified conglomerate, and with the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) as a part of the consortiumawardedthismandate.

TheWCTwillbedevelopedonaBuild, OperateandTransferbasisforaperiodof 35yearsasapublic-privatepartnership.

The project is expected to boost WCT’s container handling capacity and further consolidate Sri Lanka’s locationaladvantageasoneoftheworld’s top strategic nodes along the busiest globaltranshipmentroute.

TheColomboPortisalreadythemost preferred regional hub for transhipment of Indian containers and mainline ship operators with 45 per cent of Colombo’s transhipmentvolumeseitheroriginatingfromordestinedto anAdaniportterminalinIndia.

Thenetworkimpactofthispartnershipissignificantand expected to be mutually benefitted from the string of 7containerterminalsacrossits12portsthatAdanioperates along the Indian coastline handling an annual volume of over6millionTEUs.