By Imsha Iqbal Trincomalee Port has resumed facilitating shipments for exporters after 30 years of suspended operations. Speaking to The Sunday Morning Business, Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) Port of Trincomalee Resident Manager Saman Perera said: “This is the first time ever in history that we have started exporting ilmenite through the Ashroff Jetty [of the Trincomalee Port].”Accordingly, the first shipment was exported on Wednesday (21) to China. This was a consignment of 60,000 MT of ilmenite exported by Gold Medal Consortium (Pvt) Ltd., a Sri Lankan exporter of ilmenite, zircon, rutile, and Hi-Ti ilmenite.In addition to China, Trincomalee Port anticipates facilitating shipments to European countries as it has ‘potential’. However, the Ports Authority merely facilitated matters at the Port for shipments in loading cargo to the vessels while exporters decided on the country of the shipment, the Resident Manager explained. For the aforementioned shipment, the cargo had been brought through a tender, Perera added. Responding to an inquiry by The Sunday Morning Business on the Port’s three-decade-long delay in resuming shipment facilities for exporters, Perera said that operations had been halted due to a terrorist attack on a vessel during the country’s Civil War. However, exporting had been carried out through a barge, Perera said, explaining that it was later also undertaken via containers. Nevertheless, these measures incurred considerable costs for the Port, and therefore, the process of exporting ilmenite via containers had been suspended and instead carried out through the Port of Colombo.Perera said that the Trincomalee Port had initiated exporting as the country was suffering from the economic crisis due to the foreign exchange crunch: “This facility has been arranged for exporters with the help of the management of the Sri Lanka Ports Authority.”The Port of Trincomalee looks forward to advertising both internationally and locally in order to call for proposals from potential investors, and an evaluated Request for Proposal (RFP) has been submitted for approval. The Trincomalee Port is considered the second best natural harbour in the world and its water and land area is about 10 times as much as the Port of Colombo. It has been identified to cater for bulk and break bulk cargo as well as port-related industrial activities including heavy industries, along with tourism and agriculture.
