Investigation of the ways to Develop the Port at Hambantota of Sri Lanka as a Vehicle Transshipment Hub

Abstract

Developing transshipment hub port facilities can provide a plethora of advantages to a country for global competitiveness. This is especially true for an emerging economy like Sri Lanka endowed with an important strategic location in South Asia. This study aims to explore the way to develop the port at Hambantota as a vehicle transshipment hub port. To this end, a preliminary study is conducted before the implementation of the research study. In addition, as the significant there are four vehicle transshipment hub ports which have located around the Hambantota International Port (HIP), data analysis is performed regarding these ports to identify the ways to develop HIP as a vehicle transshipment hub port. According to the selected hub ports, monetary, time, port traffic, location, operation, and shipping-related categories have been identified as the significant factors by using secondary data collected from the previous research articles and the internal records of the Hambantota International Port (HIP). In addition to that, shipping service design factors, macro-level factors, port-related factors, strategic changes in the shipping industry, and stakeholder influence are considered to investigate of the ways to develop HIP as a vehicle transshipment hub port.