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Sri Lanka eyes South Asian hub with Chinese mega port

AFP, Colombo
A $500 million Chinese-built port opens Monday in Sri Lanka, giving Beijing a vital foothold on the world's busiest international shipping lane as it seeks to secure maritime supply routes.
The massive terminal in Colombo is located mid-way on the lucrative east-west sea route and has facilities on a par with Singapore and Dubai.
The Colombo International Container Terminal (OCT), which is 85 percent owned by the staterun China Merchant Holdings International, is designed to handle mega ships - a first for Sri Lanka which is aiming to become the region's shipping hub.
The involvement of such a large Chinese company appears to conform to a pattern by Beijing after it sealed a deal in January to acquire the Pakistani port of Gwadar at a time when it is also building a $14
million "dry port" in the Nepalese dty of Larcha, near Tibet.
Chinese loans and expertise were also instrumental in the construction of a new $450 million deep-sea port at the southern Sri Lankan city of Hambantota which opened in June 2012.
Independent shipping expert, Rohan Masakorala, says the new termi -nal made economic sense for China to tap in to the growing South Asian container cargo and gave Beijing a foothold along a strategic sea route
"Terminal investments are a good business which can give a very good return," said Masakorala, a former secretary-general of the Singaporebased Asian Shippers Council.
"Through this investment, China is also securing the safety and efficiency oftheir main supply chain. ”
Masakorala, who heads the Shippers' Academy Colombo, said about half of all world sea trade passed through the east-west shipping route and a presence at a mid-
way point along that gives China a commanding position.
"For China to maintain economic growth at home they also need to go out and secure their supply routes. In that sense, coming to Colombo is a strategic commercial investment"
The Chinese investment in Sri Lanka, which is under pressure from Western powers and India over its human rights record, has raised fears in New Delhi about Beijing's influence in the neighbourhood.
But Priyath Bandu Wickrama, chairman of the state-run Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA), insisted that India had nothing to fear from the new Colombo port and could in fact be a major benefidaty.
"We will not allow any military base at our ports nor will we allow them to be used for any strategic military purpose by anyone,* Wickrama said.
Wickrama said shippers in India could save up to four days by touting their cargo through Sri Lanka rather
than using Singapore or Dubai.
"Earlier, Indians along the east coast had to send their cargo to Singapore if they wanted to catch a mega ship going West. Now these mega ships will be going through Colombo and picking up Indian cargo," he told AFP. "That saves time and a lot of money.'
The two major ports of south India, the Port of Cochin and the Port of Tuticorin, are too shallow for mega vessels such as the world's largest container ship, the MV. Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller.
Saliya Senanayake from the London-based Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport says that "India is about five to six years behind Sri Lanka when it comes to port infrastructure".
Sri Lanka has been an important stop in the ancient Silk Sea Route and today hundreds of ships pass its southern coast daily while plying the world's busiest international shipping lane.