Indian-origin products are routed to Maldives through Colombo and Dubai
Regular shipping would mean just-in-time inventory for Maldives, and reduce cost of imports as sometimes they are forced to airlift items in shortage
Kochi: A meeting between officials of the Cochin Port Trust and Maldives Port explored the possibility of starting cargo shipping service between Cochin and Maldives. Cochin is the nearest port to Maldives with sailing time of 30 hours. A lot of Indian-origin produces and products are now routed to Maldives through Colombo, Dubai and Singapore. Hence there is a scope to operate a weekly service of a 600 TEU vessel from Cochin Port to Male.
The regular shipping would mean just-in-time inventory for Maldives, and reduce cost of imports as sometimes they are forced to airlift items in shortage, a release by Cochin Port said on Saturday. K K Krishanadas, CEO, DP World Cochin, terminal operators of the International Container Transshipment Terminal at Vallarpadam was also present at the meeting. The terminal operators informed that they have started exploring ways to facilitate regular sailings to Maldives and to promote cargo movement to Maldives Port via Cochin Port.
Paul Antony, Chairman Cochin Port Trust hoped that the proposed 100 acre Free Trade Warehousing Zone(FTWZ)of Cochin Port could be ideal for Maldivian trade opportunity. It was decided to apprise the shipping companies and business community in Kerala and Tamil Nadu and oil companies to tap this business opportunity and facilitate faster connectivity to Maldives via Kochi. Maldives importing about $ 1.5 billion worth of goods annually from various countries and the Male Port handles around 70,000 TEUs per year.
( Source : dc correspondent )
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