A Tale of Two Ports: Colombo and Thessaloniki

During recent separate meetings with Indian and Sri Lankan foreign policy experts in Washington, DC, two geographically distant ports – Colombo, Sri Lanka, and Thessaloniki, Greece – were emphasized. Independently and together, they serve as strategic junctions in the US-India partnership that will lace together the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic. Though oceans apart, these hubs will likely connect through a trade corridor in which the Port of Haifa is central. So that we can craft our actions prudently over time, we want to understand the developments at each port and how they affect business, logistics, and geopolitics within a maritime and commercial system that includes Israel as a material participant.

The Port of Colombo is a transshipment hub located twelve thousand miles south of Haifa. It is about 175 nautical miles off India’s coast. Because some Indian ports are too shallow for today’s high-capacity container ships, Colombo’s deep water solves a physical problem. At Colombo, shipping companies consolidate containerized cargo from smaller Indian ports before loading onto larger vessels sailing to Europe or the Middle East. Roughly, half of India’s Europe-bound trade flows through Colombo.

Recognizing its importance, the US government partnered with India’s Adani Ports company (which operates part of Haifa’s container port) to invest in a new deep-water terminal at the Port of Colombo. This move responded to China’s domineering position in Sri Lanka’s logistical infrastructure. Beijing enjoyed effective control of Hambantota Port, Colombo operations, and related warehousing. The Adani-led investment to develop a new container terminal at Colombo provides India and its Western partners with elevated assurances of commercial access to these transshipment facilities.

On the European side, the Port of Thessaloniki’s operators anticipate its growing role as a destination for ships transiting the Suez Canal and, in time, arriving from Haifa. Unlike Greece’s Port of Piraeus (which is majority Chinese-controlled), Thessaloniki remains in friendlier hands.

Thessaloniki’s highway and rail connections into central Europe along Pan-European Transport Corridor Ten allow it to handle growing South Asia-Europe trade. If the India-Middle East-Europe (IMEC) transport corridor develops as envisioned, Thessaloniki could receive and dispatch a significant portion of this transshipment volume. Its ownership structure makes it attractive to Indian and Western enterprises.

Colombo’s expansion helps India reduce its dependence on Chinese-controlled facilities while strengthening ties with Western partners. Thessaloniki offers European markets an efficient port of entry for South Asian goods that is not under Chinese supervision.

These developments suggest an elevated strategic relevance for Sri Lanka and Greece, each hosting a valuable link in the emerging Western-oriented, Indo-European supply chain that relies on Israeli infrastructure. As the IMEC corridor takes shape, the local choices made at these two ports will influence business options that affect us. Business organizations and diplomats in Israel will want to pay attention to each port’s governance and the range of sensitivities and constraints under which each operates.