President Anura Kumara Dissanayake told Sri Lanka’s largest business gathering on Monday that the government intends to hand the management and operating rights of the East Container Terminal at the Port of Colombo to a private partner while keeping the terminal in state ownership — and that it has taken no decision on whether to seek a new International Monetary Fund programme when the current one expires in March.
He was speaking during a fireside chat at the inauguration of the Sri Lanka Economic and Investment Summit 2026, organised by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce and moderated by Standard Chartered Bank Sri Lanka CEO and chamber Vice Chairperson Bingumal Thewarathanthri, the Daily FT reported.
The ECT announcement closes a question left open in September
The terminal is currently operated by the state-owned Sri Lanka Ports Authority. The President said its throughput is around 500,000 TEUs against a potential annual capacity of 3.2 million TEUs once fully developed and optimised — meaning it is running at roughly 16% of what it could carry. Delays in port operations, he argued, mean the country is not making the best use of assets it already owns.
That is the clearest statement yet in a thread this newsroom has followed since May, and it answers a question we left open two weeks ago.
- In May, Ports Minister Anura Karunathilaka denied that any decision had been taken to privatise the ECT, saying no proposal had reached Cabinet, the SLPA or the ministry — and that port workers and trade unions would be consulted before any strategic decision.
- In September, the same minister said the government was exploring a joint venture with shipping lines, with five to six lines interested, Cabinet approval and an expressions-of-interest round still to come, and a target of the first half of 2027.
- That September article asked, in terms, what stake the SLPA would retain. The President has now answered it: the state keeps ownership, and a private partner takes management and operating rights.
The five-to-six figure has not moved since September. The Daily FT reports, citing industry accounts, that five to six international shipping lines have expressed interest, and that the government has not formally identified a preferred operator or announced the terms and timeline of the arrangement.
One element of the May undertaking is absent from Monday’s account. Karunathilaka’s denial was conditioned on consulting port workers and trade unions first; neither filing on the President’s remarks says whether that consultation has happened, is scheduled, or still stands.
A note on the capacity figure
The September reporting put the ECT’s capacity on full expansion at 2.4 to 3 million TEUs. The President gave 3.2 million. The figures are close but not identical, and no filing reconciles them.
The same 3.2 million TEU figure now attaches to three separate Colombo projects: the ECT’s stated potential, the capacity West Container Terminal II is expected to add, and the total capacity of Colombo West International Terminal’s Phase II. No filing explains whether this reflects a common design standard for a fully built deep-water terminal or is coincidence, and the three should not be added together casually.
The wider project slate
The President set out a list of assets and projects to be opened to private participation:
West Container Terminal II. About US$1.4 billion is required for the breakwater infrastructure, with financing expected to be sought from multilateral development institutions. Preliminary design work has progressed with Asian Development Bank support, and the final report is expected by April 2027.
A logistics centre inside the Port of Colombo. The SLPA intends to call a fresh tender after resolving a dispute over land previously allocated to other parties. Compensation is to be paid to those parties before the land is released.
A container examination facility at Kerawalapitiya, through a public-private partnership, capable of examining about 150 containers. The PPP approach has Cabinet approval. It is intended to ease congestion and speed Customs clearance.
Bunkering. The government is considering cutting the existing 2.5% tax or levy on bunkering in Budget 2027, following representations from the Bunkering Committee, to strengthen Sri Lanka’s position as a regional bunkering centre. It is also weighing a Ceylon Petroleum Corporation partnership with private operators to expand bunker-fuel storage at the JCT Oil Bank.
Renewable energy. Four grid lines are expected to be opened to private participation. The President questioned reliance on fixed feed-in tariffs set by the Public Utilities Commission, arguing competitive tendering would lower costs, and said land scarcity means greater emphasis on floating solar — citing the recent Ibbankatuwa project.
ICT and AI skills. An agreement with Singapore is to be signed next week to establish a training centre on Wijerama Mawatha, with the proposal also going to Cabinet next week. He said public-sector and specialist salary structures need to improve to attract and retain expertise.
On fuel retail, he repeated positions already on the record — 75 additional CPC filling stations, and a review of the agreements with Lanka IOC, Sinopec and other private suppliers with the Attorney General involved. His framing was blunter than the ministry’s:
“Although in urban areas both public and private fuel stations are available, in outstations only one player is available and mostly private sheds. Limiting distribution by private players due to price while having stocks is not correct and fair.”
“Be a competitive player. Profit and social responsibility is something that the private sector must consider.”
He also said Rs. 60 billion had been allocated in fuel concessions to cushion the economy after the crisis and Cyclone Ditwah, with a further Rs. 41 billion for targeted communities — Rs. 101 billion in total. Identifying eligible beneficiaries remains difficult because of data gaps, and Mobitel and Dialog are discussing possible solutions.
The pitch came with a condition attached to the private sector itself. Investment protection, transparency, predictable rules and infrastructure must be matched by stronger domestic firms, the President said: “If there are not strong local entrepreneurs and businesses, with whom can the foreign investors do businesses or joint ventures?” He said tax concessions might be extended to businesses investing in rural areas.
On the IMF: open, but undecided
Sri Lanka is open to a fresh IMF programme after the current one ends, but no decision has been taken, the President said — framing it as a judgement about whether the economy can absorb another external shock without support.
“We are not in a position where we have completely ruled it out, nor are we saying that we must definitely continue. We remain open-minded,” he said, according to NewsFirst.
The current arrangement is a 48-month Extended Fund Facility approved on 20 March 2023, worth about US$3 billion (SDR 2.286 billion), running to 19 March 2027. Sri Lanka has entered or sought IMF support on 17 occasions since joining the institution.
He said the existing programme was built to restore stability and that a successor should weight growth more heavily, with officials from the Finance Ministry, the Central Bank and a team of economic advisers examining the options. Ratings have improved, he said, but foreign reserves have “not yet reached the level we expect” and the country’s credit standing needs further work.
He also defended the government’s record with the Fund, saying only a very limited number of its policy ambitions had been constrained by the agreement: “That is why, I believe, we have been able to proceed without major conflict. Otherwise, we would not have been able to continue with the programme for four years. Many programmes around the world have broken down before completion.”
This updates the position the Deputy Finance Minister gave Parliament on 8 October, which described a shift “from crisis-driven support towards a more sustainable, long-term growth-targeted engagement model.” That account left open when a decision was expected; the President has now supplied a window — he will use what remains of the current arrangement to decide.
The timeline the outlets give is longer than the calendar allows
Both filings describe the time remaining under the facility generously. The Daily FT reports “the remaining six months”; NewsFirst gives “six to seven months.” From Monday’s summit to the programme’s stated end on 19 March 2027 is about five months and one week. The discrepancy is small but it matters for a decision the President has explicitly tied to that window.
The two outlets give different fuel import figures
The President used Sri Lanka’s fuel bill to illustrate the external risk — and the two newsrooms report it differently.
| 2025 full year | First 8 months of 2026 | |
|---|---|---|
| Daily FT | US$4,042 mn | US$4,082 mn |
| NewsFirst | US$4,442 mn | US$4,482 mn |
Both agree on the headline warning — that on current trends the 2026 bill could reach nearly US$6 billion — and both agree the eight-month figure has already overtaken the whole of 2025. The gap between the two figures within each account is exactly US$40 million in both renderings, which indicates the two outlets are reporting the same pair of numbers with one digit differing, rather than two different statistics.
One internal test favours the Daily FT’s version. Annualised, its US$4,082 million over eight months implies about US$6.1 billion for the year — consistent with the “nearly US$6 billion” both outlets report. NewsFirst’s US$4,482 million annualises to about US$6.7 billion, which does not sit comfortably with the same warning. This is offered as a reason to prefer one figure, not as a correction; neither outlet has addressed the other, and no official release has been published.
Not reported
Neither filing says when the ECT expressions-of-interest round will open, what the concession period or revenue split would be, whether the five to six interested lines have been narrowed, or whether the trade-union consultation promised in May has taken place. Neither says whether Cabinet has approved the ECT transfer itself, as distinct from the Kerawalapitiya PPP.
No filing gives a cost, timetable or site list for the four renewable grid lines, the value of the Singapore training-centre agreement, or the identity of the parties being compensated over the port logistics-centre land.
On the IMF, neither filing reports whether the Fund has responded to the President’s remarks, what form a successor arrangement would take, or whether it would involve new financing. The government’s own eighth review under the current facility is not mentioned in either account.
Neither outlet publishes the source of the fuel import figures — Customs, the Central Bank or the Finance Ministry — which would settle the discrepancy above.
