International. The Port of Colombo handled 4,444,034 TEUs in the first half of 2026, up 11.9 per cent from 3,972,053 TEUs a year earlier, Sri Lanka’s Daily FT reported on 1 August.
Transhipment made up 84.7 per cent of throughput and rose 12.6 per cent, while domestic volumes grew 8.3 per cent. Colombo International Container Terminals handled 1,642,647 TEUs, or 37 per cent of the total. Vessel calls rose 2.5 per cent to 2,066, and calls for bunkering, ship repair and chandlering rose 24.4 per cent. The port aims to become one of the world’s 15 busiest container ports.
“Growth must be sustainable,” said Sri Lanka Ports Authority chairman Dr Parakrama Dissanayake. Colombo is one of the hubs through which Bangladeshi containers are transhipped onto mainline vessels.
Source
- Daily FT (Sri Lanka): “Colombo Port records 11.9% growth in 1H container throughput” (1 August 2026)
File photo: the Port of Colombo. Photo: jgmorard / CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
This article is a summary prepared by Maritime News BD from the report(s) listed above; it was not independently reported by Maritime News BD.
