21 March 2024 10:36 pm Views - 729
Addressing an event organized to declare ‘National Seafarers Day’ today, Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva said, as far as the maritime industry is concerned, the primitive maritime industry is no more there. We are going to zero emissions such as ammonia, hydrogen, and green energy.
"That transformation is not easy; it needs a lot of money and professionalism. It is a question of how we are going to build that. Therefore, we have to ensure that we make changes to our ports, ships and services very soon. We have to start with it, not itself; otherwise, we will be lacking behind the other countries in which we are competing in maritime," the minister said.
However, thankful to the Indian government, we have taken action to expand the port activities, he said.
"I have already taken action for the ship registration. We had been unable to attract more and more ships to be registered in Sri Lanka, as many other countries do. We are employing the private sector for that because we cannot keep everything in the government. We need to spread our economy more widely," Minister Silva said.
One of the obstacles we face in registering ships is that we do not have enough ships owned by us. We have only two ships in the shipping company.
Pix by Kithsiri de Mel