Impacts of the Belt and Road Initiative in the Indian subcontinent under future port development scenarios

The aim of this paper is twofold: the first is to assess the extent to which current port development initiatives contribute to securing the status of the Port of Colombo as a regional transshipment (T/S) hub to serve the Indian subcontinent; and the second is to generate plausible future developmen...

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Published inMaritime policy and management Vol. 46; no. 8; pp. 905 - 919
Main Authors Ruan, Xiao, Bandara, Yapa Mahinda, Lee, Jun-Yeop, Lee, Paul Tae-Woo, Chhetri, Prem
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Routledge 17.11.2019
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)
Cargo
Cargo capacity
Cargo handling
Cargo ships
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)
container shipping
Corridors
Economic analysis
Economics
Indian subcontinent
Industrialization
Initiatives
Maritime industry
port infrastructure development
Ports
Roads
scenario analysis
Sri Lanka
Traffic
China
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Summary:The aim of this paper is twofold: the first is to assess the extent to which current port development initiatives contribute to securing the status of the Port of Colombo as a regional transshipment (T/S) hub to serve the Indian subcontinent; and the second is to generate plausible future development scenarios for the maritime industry in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). A scenario analysis method is applied to examine the past trends and to build future development scenarios. The results showed that major Indian ports have experienced a significant growth in cargo volumes and vessel traffic. South and East Indian coastal ports continue to use the Port of Colombo as a T/S port in tandem with the corridors connected to the Indian Ocean. Scenario analysis highlights the growing importance of BRI-centric land-based economic corridors, which would generate a large amount of cargos from hinterlands up to China. This would be further fueled through the Great Mekong region-driven industrialization, which would add to the west-bound maritime cargo volume. The paper concludes that the increased capital influx from China would more likely to result in a substantial development of the present port and road/rail infrastructure in Sri Lanka.
ISSN:0308-8839
1464-5254
DOI:10.1080/03088839.2019.1594425