A Sri Lankan business leader says the country’s potential as a logistics hub for the shipping industry has been consistently under-estimated.

Sujeewa Samaraweera, the Chairman of the Ports and Shipping Committee of the National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka (NCCSL), said Sri Lanka had the potential to be the “number one shipping hub” in the region.

"We have a large potential for transshipment, bunkering, ship repairs, ship building all of which were not looked at in a planned manner,” he was quoted as saying in the Sri Lankan media.

He said there had been “dire need” for a broad-based shipping policy to help the Sri Lankan port of Colombo become a shipping and logistical hub in Southeast Asia.

Samaraweera welcomed a new government plan for Sri Lanka’s maritime sector. He said it showed a commitment to creating reliable maritime and logistic services, including bunkering.

“The truth is that we have all this time under estimated the large potential that Sri Lanka has to become the number one shipping hub in the region purely due to our geographical location and the availability of the natural harbours,” he claimed.

A Sri Lankan Supreme Court ruling last year has helped open the Colombo bunker market to more competition. Meanwhile, work on a new bunkering terminal at the Sri Lankan port of Hambantota is running ahead of schedule and could be completed before 2011.