Bridging the East and West with Seamless logistics in Sri Lanka

Often referred to as the ‘Land of Serendipity’, Sri Lanka, one of India’s leading trade partners and a country that is strategically located to connect countries in the East and the West, has ambitions to become South Asia’s leading maritime, logistics and distribution hub. This has the potential to create significant opportunities for global logistics services providers like ECU Worldwide.

Sri Lanka is geographically well-positioned in South Asia. The busy East-West shipping route passes just six to ten nautical miles south of the island and annually carries two-thirds of the world’s oil and half of all container shipments.

Logistics services that leverage the location

Sri Lanka’s strategic location creates a huge advantage for businesses in and around the region as well as across the globe that seek to reach out to a larger target audience or market.

Being among the main marine and air navigation routes within the South Asian region makes Sri Lanka a lucrative destination for Free Zone, transhipment, combined sea-air operations and logistics development. Additionally, the country’s close proximity to emerging markets makes it an important logistics hub in the region offering global businesses an accessible entry-point.

“We, at ECU Worldwide Sri Lanka, have been able to offer the best transit and freight services to customers across our global network operating in more than 180 countries. In doing so, we have successfully contributed to increasing business to and from Sri Lanka and also been able to help customers maximise the benefits of Sri Lanka’s position as one of the main gateway ports by offering seamless connectivity to ECU Worldwide and Allcargo Logistics’ offices in the Indian subcontinent”, says Maneevannan Bakthavathsal, Country Manager, ECU Worldwide Sri Lanka.

Supporting Sri Lanka’s trade, commerce and industry

Being one of the world’s biggest exporters of tea, and the origin of Cinnamon, tea and spices are among Sri Lanka’s common exports along with apparel, tyres, rubber, porcelain products and more. The country’s major imports include a variety of goods like fabric and accessories, dairy products, food supplements, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, etc.

Considering the diverse nature of imports and exports, it is important that logistics services providers in the region are expert and well-equipped to transport various types and sizes of cargo including Dangerous Goods (DG) cargo and hazardous goods. What works really well for businesses irrespective of their size or industry is to partner with global logistics companies like ECU Worldwide that can also ensure local expertise at both, the origin and destination countries.

Sri Lanka is implementing policies and measures to better its ‘Ease of doing business’ parameters and the impact is visible in the way different businesses are picking up with tourism, hub operations, Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and others forming the major ones.

Offering seamless, end-to-end logistics solutions ECU Worldwide has emerged as one of the leading Multiple-Countries-Consolidation (MCC) operators in the APAC region. Consolidation is the major business in Sri Lanka and ECU Worldwide Sri Lanka offers 25 direct export services and 17 direct import services along with an extensive coverage of more than 2400 direct trade lanes for LCL and door-to-door quotes and bookings for 57 countries. Additionally ECU Worldwide Sri Lanka’s transhipment services for global cargo help customers benefit from Colombo’s position as a strategic regional transhipment hub.

Forever focused on customer delight

Sri Lanka’s size of 65,500 sq. km. and domestic logistics network focused on road transport along with oil, minerals and bulk cargo transported by rail to port-to-port locations creates opportunities and challenges.

Since there is a considerable lack of Inland Container Depots (ICD) in Sri Lanka, people from all parts of the country need to clear the cargo and transport it to and from Colombo. This results into delays and impacts costs too. However, for businesses that opt for logistics services from experienced global LCL leaders like ECU Worldwide, not only is the experience smooth and convenient, but they also benefit from a number of value additions like FCL, air freight, sea-air combination, and door-to-door services, as per their business supply chain requirements.

ECU Worldwide Sri Lanka offers agile operations, trustworthy business relations, and tailor-made solutions. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, the team extended unparalleled support, handling customer queries promptly and continuously interacting with customers to ensure timely stuffing and de-stuffing of the cargo. What sets the team at ECU Worldwide Sri Lanka apart is the approach of continuously getting feedback from customers and taking necessary action to meet their expectations and delight them.

Powering a digital transformation

With ECU Worldwide’s state-of-the-art digital platform ECU360 v2.0, ECU Worldwide Sri Lanka’s customers can experience new levels of convenience as they conduct business 24×7 and explore a number of features like instant quotes, quick bookings, access to information and complete visibility.

This digital transformation driven by an enthusiastic, committed team is empowering customers and helping them make their global cargo movements safe, smooth and digitally-enabled to keep pace and succeed in the new normal business environment.