India Investing in Domestic Port development to attract and facilitate trade

By - CEM Team

India – Today’s most lucrative and growing emerging economy has 13 major sea ports and around 200 non-major sea ports and intermediate ports. According to a major research report, India's cargo traffic is expected to reach 1,758 MMT by 2017, with a capacity of all major ports at 871.52 MMT, as on March 31^st 2015.

Government of India (GOI) is promoting and investing heavily in port development to give a boost to foreign trade. GOI has also launched 'Sagarmala' initiative under which it plans to invest US$ 10.5 billion in 12 major ports in the next five years.

The government is planning to channel investments of US$180 billion into shipping, ports and allied sectors over the next five years, which will create 10 million direct and indirect jobs, said the shipping minister, Nitin Gadkari

Also, the country is planning to add eight more ports in addition to 12 state state-run major ports, mentioned in a statement by the minister. One of these major port is planned to be built in Karnataka (at Belekeri near Karwar) (Southern India), with an investment of US$600 million. Work on three ports - Wadhvan off the Dahanu coast in Maharashtra, Sagar in West Bengal and Colachel in Tamil Nadu is planned to begin this year (2016). Minister mentioned that for remaining four ports - two ports each will come up in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, and one in Karnataka, which will be a major port. (All states are in Southern India)

Ministry has been able to attract project financing for these ports developments. Shipping Minister Gadkari detailed state wise attracted investments as – US$13.5 billion investments in ports for Tamil Nadu (Southern India) , US$ 1.5 billion for Karnataka (Southern India) and Goa (West India) each, and over US$14.26 billion investments in Maharashtra (West India).

This huge investment in developing Indian ports is a thrust to increased foreign trade and incentivizes global investors to look at India as their next investment destination.

Source: News, IBEF