A team of officials from Maldives Port have held discussions with the Cochin Port Trust and Vallarpadam Transhipment container terminal officials, to explore the possiblity of operating a weekly cargo shipping service between Kochi and Male.
Maldives imports about 1.5 billion USD worth of goods annually. The Male Port handles about 70,000 TEUs(Twenty-Foot Equivalent Unit) annually and Cochin Port is the nearest port, with only 30 hours sailing. A lot of Indian-origin produce 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 cochin port press release said.
The Maldivian officials met the Cochin Port and Terminal officials here yesterday.
K K Krishanadas, CEO, DP World Cochin, terminal operators of ICTT Vallarpadam, who was also present during the discussions confirmed 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 this 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.
