Resurrection of old Silk Road at Hambantota on Sunday

SRI LANKA which conquered terrorism that devastated its economy and the humanity for the last three decades has paved the way to become the Miracle of Asia. With the opening of the Port built inland on Sri Lanka’s southern coast of Hambantota it would invite outside investors into its $1.5 billion (955.9 million pounds) Hambantota port project,
The Hambantota  port is situated on Sri Lanka’s southern coast, along an ancient “Silk Road” trading route and one of the world’s biggest East-West shipping lanes.  Sri Lanka initially aims to get 2,500 of the 60,000 cargo vessels that pass Hambantota, along the old Silk Route annually to use its bunkering and cargo handling facilities, and expand that to 8,000 a year once the second phase is done in 2014.

Sri Lanka now handles around 6,000 ships annually in its only International port in Colombo on the western coast, which requires ships plying the East-West shipping lanes to divert.

The government has embarked upon Mega development projects along with this Port development project. The port and its accompanying services represent the single largest investment option for foreign investors in Sri Lanka, which is aiming to double its 43 billion US dollar economy (Per Capita US 2053) in the next four years.

Apart from the oil bunkering facility the Ports authority has sought foreign investment to handle other key areas in the port related economy. According to Port Authority Chairman Dr. Priyath Wickrema the bulk cargo handling, storage facility, warehouses, transhipment, and all others are open for investments, China, Sri Lanka’s largest infrastructure lender, has loaned $425 million (270 million pounds) towards the port, which will be Sri Lanka’s largest.

China has already entered into a MOU also to fund the second stage of the port development when the Chinese Vice Premier visited Sri Lanka in the recent past. Initially, Hambantota will have 100,0000 metric tonnes of bunkering capacity, which could be expanded to 4 million metric tonnes if demand picks up.