Sri Lanka’s pioneer Shipbuilding and Ship repairing facility, Colombo Dockyard PLC teamed up with Master Divers (Pvt) Limited, experts in all types of diving services in and outside ports and Prudential Shippingwho offers Ship Agency / Husbandry services to all ships calling at the ports of Sri Lanka participated in one of the biggest International Maritime Exhibitions “Posidonia 2022” during June 6-10, at the Metropolitan Expo Centre, Athens, Greece. These three companies, constituted the Sri Lanka pavilion which was a first time for Sri Lanka at a Shipping related exhibition.
Colombo Dockyard has been a regular participant at the Posidonia platform over the past three decades flying the Sri Lankan flag and promoting Colombo as a competitive repair and building centre in the South Asian region. The Greek maritime community represents a huge market for shipyards around the world, with Greek Ship owners having the world’s biggest tonnage. This naturally makes them one of the biggest spenders on building, dry-docking, maintenance and ancillary services.
Master Divers too have been participating in Posidonia regularly and makes use of it to meet up with their regular clients in Greece. By offering all types of diving services in the ports of Colombo, Galle, Hambantota & Trincomalee and at their anchorages together with ship maintenance activities, marine engineering, harbour contracts, servicing, heavy engineering, etc. the Greek market is one of the prime markets for Master Divers.
Prudential Shipping with its associate companies Premium Trading & Logistics and Helanka Vacations offer a vast variety of services related to total Ship agency services, customs clearing, and forwarding, Offshore Logistics, Supply and delivery of provision, and ships stores/spares, Logistics to Maritime security, emergency evacuation of sick crew, Ship Broking, Flight schedules, Freight forwarding, Trading, Tourism and many more.
The three leading organisations serving the maritime industry for decades, synergised their expertise offering total solutions to ships arriving or passing by Sri Lankan waters. This mega event has been a good platform to connect with various stakeholders in the global shipping fraternity namely ship owning and management companies, shipyards, specialized service providers, ship agencies, OEMs, classification societies, flag states, shipbrokers etc and a very good opportunity to promote the integrated services the Sri Lankan companies can offer.
Sri Lanka’s strategic geographical location, the advantage of being close to main marine trading routes and being a hub of sea and air transportation, many European clients were seriously looking at Colombo as a potential servicing, maintenance, routine – specialized – emergency ship repair services and also building state of art vessels for Europe.
Minimum diversion to the main marine trading routes, extended repair assistance (both afloat and underwater) and all ancillary services in all ports and anchorage, quality, flexibility, speed, and competitive rates were some of the factors highlighted to the potential clients during this international shipping event. This event was also utilised to educate the industry players about the current economic situation of Sri Lanka and the priority status extended for the Port related industries to operate smoothly.
Posidonia 2022 was a great platform for many stakeholders in the global maritime community with over 1,964 exhibiting companies from 88 countries and some 29,000 visitors from 103 countries. The Sri Lanka Pavillion was graced by Mr PremalalJayasundera of the Sri Lanka Consul in Athens. Overall, it was a mega event of over 40,000 participants, including exhibitors, visitors and press. This year’s Expo has been considered an overwhelming success, as the exhibition assembled the global maritime industry after a long break of four years, due to the pandemic
Posidonia 2022 was a highly successful forum with the receptiveness of the industry towards the unique services provided, as one of the strategic marine hubs on the maritime map.