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Sri Lanka Navy Journal 73

developmental process, as it impacts the regions serviced by the entrepôt and
the global economy as well.
The objective of this study was to establish that the Sri Lankan Navy has the
perceptual, conceptual and organizational capacity to make significant
contributions towards the island’s role as an entrepôt, and to outline the nature
of the contributions that it can make. The research methodology was mixed
using factual data sources, and primary data gathered from interviews with
stakeholders.
Evolution of Enterpot Trade

Entrepôts and entrepôt trade can be traced back to Medieval times, when
staple ports, the earliest form of entrepôts, were established along major trade
routes (Boon, 2013). Merchants were required to unload their cargo at the
staple port and trade with local customers within a few days, before being
permitted to reload the unsold goods and travel onwards. Calais, a port in France,
was designated as a staple port for wool and leather exports, and all wool sold
overseas was first taken to Calais, as it had the exclusive right to trade raw wool
(Feenstra & Hanson, 2014).

Entrepôts also thrived in early-modern historical periods when the
maritime silk route was also known as spice routes, operated with a network of
sea routes, linking the East with the West and stretched from China to Middle
East and Europe, passing the Philippines, Indonesia, Malacca, the Bay of Bengal
and Sri Lanka on the way to Europe via the Persian Gulf or the Red Sea, and to
the southern coast of Africa (Bopearachchi, 2014).
The ports along the maritime Silk Route not only facilitated trade, but also the
exchange of knowledge, religions, languages, expertise and skills (Irwin, 1978).
Traders however, were often reluctant to travel the entire, mostly
perilous, route and thus relied on entrepôts along the way to sell their goods
(Boon, 2013). Traders often ship their merchandise to the port of destination
via another convenient port which then becomes the entrepôt trade port.
Through this operation, the entrepôt port earns handling fees for logistics
and other services. In addition to port fees, the country earns valuable foreign
exchange through value addition or re-exporting at a higher value (Heng, 1991).
Hence, it is also an important means of employment generation for an emerging
State.

The ancient natural harbours around Sri Lanka were busy ports. These
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included: Manthai in 3 Century BCE to 11 CE in the Northwest of Mannar,
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Godawaya in the 1 century BCE to 10 CE in the south a small fishing hamlet
located at the mouth of the Walawe River, between Ambalantota and
Hambantota and Gokanna in the East of Trincomalee and the adjacent navigable