Colombo International Container Terminals (CICT) recently welcomed the maiden call of CMA CGM Nabucco, the first vessel under Ocean Alliance to call at the Port of Colombo.
The vessel operated by CMA CGM was the first in a new weekly service attracted to Colombo by CICT this year, and will operate under the USEC 3 Columbus Suez service of Ocean Alliance, the company said.
“The introduction of this new service demonstrates how CICT continues to play the anchor role of attracting new volumes through the Port of Colombo,” CICT CEO Ray Ren said.
“This is in line with our concept and focus of marketing the Port internationally as one unit for the benefit of all terminals, thereby enhancing the position of the Port of Colombo as a major common-user transhipment hub.”
The Head of Commercial and Marketing of Colombo International Container Terminals, Ms Catriona Jayasundera emphasised the critical role played by CICT in drawing synergies from the parent company CMPort to attract the new service to the Port of Colombo.
She said that the global marketing reach of CMPort working with CICT over the past few years had enabled the Port of Colombo to move up the global rankings to the No. 23 position in the world.
With more than 40 maritime services and 323 ships, Ocean Alliance is the largest operational agreement ever made between shipping companies.
It offers 17 services on the Asian-Northern Europe, Mediterranean, Red Sea and Middle Eastern trades, and 23 services on the North American trades.
The CMA CGM Group has the biggest market share in this agreement deploying a fleet of 119 ships.
The first and currently the only deep water terminal in South Asia equipped with facilities to handle the largest vessels afloat, CICT reported a throughput of two million TEUs for the 12 months ending December 31, 2016, achieving YoY growth of 28 per cent in volume.