Colombo (AsiaNews) - A threat looms over Sri Lanka’s maritime transport sector and, in particular, the port of Colombo: the Galathea Bay International Container Transshipment Port, a strategic infrastructure project for Delhi that is set to be built on Great Nicobar Island in the Indian Ocean.
According to analysts and scholars, it represents one of the most strategically significant maritime projects currently taking shape across the entire region.
Despite Sri Lanka’s record-breaking port performance, a strategic vulnerability persists, as 45 per cent of Colombo’s transhipment trade – where goods are unloaded from one mode of transport at an intermediate point, then loaded onto another to reach their final destination – is linked to Indian goods. Furthermore, 50 per cent of the port’s transhipment activities are connected to India.
This is why India’s construction of an alternative transhipment gateway represents a serious disadvantage for Sri Lanka. In 2025, the Port of Colombo handled a record volume of 8.29 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), the highest annual throughput on record.
Almost 81 per cent of the total consisted of transhipment, confirming the capital’s port’s position as one of the Indian Ocean’s leading container hubs.
Galathea Bay’s location is particularly significant as it lies on Great Nicobar Island, close to the main east-west international shipping route; furthermore, it is strategically situated along the route leading to the Strait of Malacca, a crucial 900 km-long shipping lane that serves as the main maritime link between the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
The 5.2 billion project is currently progressing through the pre-construction and public-private partnership (PPP) implementation phases, and work is expected to begin shortly. The first phase of the project is planned for approximately 4 million TEUs, with a final expansion that could reach 16 million.
Speaking to AsiaNews, maritime experts Pradeepa Amarasekara and Sampath Attanayaka stated that “Sri Lanka’s success in transhipment trade is linked to the enormous volume of Indian goods that, via Colombo, connect to global maritime networks.
India is currently planning to change this situation. For decades, [Delhi] has made extensive use of foreign ports for the transhipment of goods, particularly Colombo and Singapore, as it lacked a comparable deep-water transhipment facility situated in a strategically advantageous location.
Now [the Indian government] wants to change this situation. Why, they ask, should Indian goods leave India to generate jobs, revenue and maritime activity in other countries? India therefore wants to retain a larger share of that value within its own territory. Galathea Bay is one of the mechanisms through which it intends to do so.”
“Colombo’s success,” the experts continue, “has been based on its strategic location, its deep-water terminals, efficient connectivity and established relationships with global shipping lines, even though most of the goods passing through Colombo do not belong to Sri Lanka.
And whilst Sri Lanka controls the port, it does not control the cargo, because it is the cargo owners, shipping lines and logistics companies who ultimately decide – they conclude – where the containers are sent, given that maritime transport networks can change.”
University lecturers Oshantha Semasinghe and Prashanthi Dassanayaka believe that “although Galathea may not divert millions of containers within a matter of days, the real possibility is that of a gradual restructuring of maritime transport networks”.
If carriers begin to channel a greater volume of Indian goods through an Indian transhipment hub, they continue, “they will develop new networks of secondary connections, new sailing schedules, including the logistical arrangements and commercial agreements centred on that hub.
Once these networks have become established, reversing this trend – they warn – will become significantly more difficult. The danger, therefore, is not that Colombo will suddenly lose its business volume, but rather that it will gradually lose its strategic centrality”.
Sri Lanka, the experts emphasise, needs a coordinated project centred on the “Colombo Maritime Competitiveness Strategy 2035” initiative, one that is serious, measurable and coordinated at national level”.
The plan is not just another policy document or committee, but a measurable competitiveness strategy for 2035, focused on: faster vessel turnaround times, higher transhipment volumes, competitive pricing, greater container productivity, digital operations and resilient connectivity of feeder routes.
Furthermore, it is necessary to modernise and expand shipping companies’ services, fuel supply, repairs, logistics and maritime technology, whilst attracting regional logistics investment and securing long-term commitments from carriers.
“Given that transhipment accounts for around four-fifths of the total volume of containers handled, the link with India,” the lecturers conclude, “is not a marginal component of port activity, but rather constitutes one of the pillars of Colombo’s position as a regional hub.”
