Bulletin No.1 | Tuesday, March 02, 2021

The second edition of the Maritime India Summit has been inaugurated by Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India today. He also unveiled the Maritime India Vision 2030 which lays the pathways for transforming India’s maritime sector. Over this decade, the vision will guide India’s efforts to become a key pillar of global transport, trade and commerce while enabling the country’s aspirations from going local to global underpinning ‘’Aatmanirbhar Bharat’’ and ‘’Make in India for the World’’ policies of the government of India.

The Maritime India Vision encourages investments in the maritime sector and underlines a roadmap to give the sector a collective haul. The inauguration also witnessed the launch of Sagar-Manthan: Mercantile Maritime Domain Awareness Centre, which is an information system for enhancing maritime safety, search and rescue capabilities, security and marine environment protection.  The summit is one of the biggest virtual summits in the world as more than 170,000 participants have registered from across 100 countries. From March 2-4, 2021, the summit will have over 50 global CEOs and more than 160 speakers engaging dignitaries, Indian diaspora and other participants from all over the world.

It was mentioned that US$82bn are being invested in the development of ports in India by 2035. Other than that, India looks at operationalising 23 inland waterways by 2030 and emerge as a leading blue economy of the world. For inland waterways, the Government of India is said to be undertaking extensive efforts for infrastructure upgradations, fairway development with navigational aid while embedding provisions for river information system as well as building inland and coastal waterways connectivity with Bangladesh and Myanmar, which are also vital for Nepal and Bhutan.

With 12 Major and 205 Non-Major Ports situated along its 7,500 Km long coastline and a vast network of navigable waterways, scope for coastal states to leverage the geographical advantage in a sustainable manner is tremendous. For that, examples such as Bhavnagar becoming the first Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) terminal in the world as well as upcoming world class maritime cluster in Gujarat were cited.  

The capacity of major ports which was around 870 Million tonnes per annum in 2014 has increased to around 1550 Million tonnes per annum now. This productivity gain not only helps in building competiveness of ports, but also boosts the overall economy by making products more competitive.  Indian ports now have measures such as: Direct port Delivery, Direct Port Entry and an upgraded Port Community System for easy data flow. Furthermore, there is an emphasis on sustainability through ways of promoting 'Waste-to-Wealth' through sustainable dredging and domestic ship recycling, the PM underscored.

Initiatives such as the Sagarmala project and other reforms measures such as plug and play infrastructure, integrating ports with coastal economic zones, developing port based smart cities, industrial parks were also highlighted.  In addition, importance of initiatives such as Ro-RO, Ro-Pax, and river cruise tourism, development of existing lighthouses and tourism landmarks, urban waterways transport systems in key states and cities such as Kochi, Mumbai, Gujarat and Goa were also discussed.

Other speakers in the Panel included: Vijay Rupani, Chief Minister of Gujarat; YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh; Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister for Petroleum & Natural Gas and Steel, the Government of India; Benny Engelbrecht, Ministry of Transport (Denmark); Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, Group Chairman and CEO of DP World.

In Maritime India Vision 2030, one of the major objectives is to develop world class port to facilitate port led development in India. The panel highlighted the potential of Indian port such as Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) port to become a mega port. Converting existing ports into mega and smart ports will reduce logistic cost by 10-15 percent by eliminating transshipment and increasing ease of doing business. The panel also highlighted different models for port development such as Public-Private Partnership model (PPP), land lord model, etc.

The panel discussed the key ingredients behind the success of the major ports, across the world. It was suggested that India should stress on infrastructure development at the port, keeping in mind the increasing size of the vessels; green technology development; digitalisation of port and improving regulatory performance.

The panel also highlighted the importance of integrating the fragmented supply chain to increase port efficiency and reduce logistic cost. In this regard, it was opined that one single platform should be used to collaborate and coordinate the maritime and hinterland connectivity effectively.

Development of port in India will not only increase government’s revenue by reducing dependence on different transshipment port such as Colombo but it is also expected to generate employment opportunity for more than 20,00,000 people directly or indirectly.

The session was moderated by Sanjay Sethi, Chairman, Jawahar Lal Nehru Port Trust and Vinit Kumar, Chairman, Paradip Port Trust. The speakers at the session were Sanjeev Ranjan, Secretary, Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, Government of India; Wan Chee Foong, Regional Chief Executive Officer-Middle East South Asia and Head of Group Business Development, PSA International Pvt Ltd; Eugene D Seroka, Executive Director, Port of Los Angeles; Tanaka Toshimitsu, Director General, Osaka Ports and Harbors Bureau; Kristof Waterschoot, Managing Director, Port of Antwerp International; Rizwan Soomar, Chief Executive Officer & Managing Director – Subcontinent, DP World; Dhruv Kotak, Managing Director, JM Baxi; Mr. Sameer Garde, President India and SAARC, CISCO.

In shipbuilding, the fundamental areas one has to concentrate upon, relevant to any industry are quality, time and cost competitiveness. Despite being built on a robust foundation, the country’s shipbuilding industry is known to build very few ships owing to its inability in several required aspects in the industry. However, on a more positive note, the country has no dearth of capability and qualified workforce in the sector, proper utilisation of these resources will be extremely beneficial in boosting the growth of shipbuilding and ship recycling in the nation, the panel underlined. 

Partnerships in the form of public-private and also support from foreign players remain imperative in the growth of the sector. For instance, Larsen and Turbo (L&T) claims to engage MSMEs for indigenisation of the products required for shipbuilding. In addition to this, companies like Damen shipyards and Fin Canteri continue to preserve their presence in the shipbuilding, ship repair and evolution of technology in the near future. India, for these foreign players, represents a very strategic location which provides a huge opportunity for them to work on industrial collaboration. 

Sustainable and responsible ship repairing remains a concern for this sector. In this regard, India has fared beautifully. The country remains the largest green ship recycling country in the world. The sector, in India, embodies the 3R’s plus the 3E’s phenomenon. In addition to Reuse, Reduce and Recycle, the sector also runs on the idea of maximising economic impact, optimising efficiency and includes the Environment, Social and Governance issues.  

Government has always played a pivotal role, in particular, in formulating rules and regulations. Certain measures where focussed efforts can contribute extensively to the ship building, ship repair and ship recycling industry in the country include: (i) soft loans and long term loans to sustain the shipbuilding and ship recycling industry as the sector has a long gestation period. (ii) India has adequately qualified and affordable workforce, such as skilled engineers, however, these abilities need to be augmented by adapting to new technology trends (iii) the small and medium sector involved in shipbuilding can be provided support through public private partnerships and also encouraging foreign presence in the country. 

Speakers: Madhu Nair, Cochin Port; AK Mehra, Deputy Chairman of Kolkata Port; Michiel Hendrikx, Director Sales, Damen Shipyards Group; Giuseppe Giordo, GMM, Naval Vessel, Business Unit, Fin Cantieri; Haresh Parmar, Hon Secretary, Ship Recycling Industries Association; Anil Sharma, President & CEO, Global Marketing Systems; Robert Zappelj, Director Sales, Royal IHC; Arun Sharma, Executive Chairman, IR Class, Mumbai; Commodore Ashok Khetan, MD & CEO, L&T Shipbuilding Ltd; VADM Narayan Prasad AVSM, VSM IN (Retd.) Chariman & MD Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Ltd, Mumbai.
 

With the onset of the pandemic, the dynamics of international trade and shipping have been altered. There is an existent uncertainty that pervades on all the aspects of shipping industry decisions inclusive of the market, finance, regulation and other associated factors. Therefore, a more progressive approach needs to be adopted to explore the untapped territories of the sector by tackling the environmental concerns through the initiatives like decarbonisation, recycling and many more.

The panel further discussed that a step ahead can be taken by leaning towards automation and digitisation. This shall enhance efficiency along with a sense of situational awareness. It shall also lead to data driven decision making thereby creating a balance in capital productivity and energy efficiency. In addition to this, the role of India in the shipping sector was elaborately discussed along with a need to promote maritime security. The discourse reflected the potential of shipping sector, the magnitude of which can multiplied by addressing the complexities of the maritime domain in a way wherein steps can be undertaken while taking into account environmental, humanitarian and safety issues.

The speakers at the panel included: Amitabh Kumar, Director General of Shipping, Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, Government of India;  Anil Devli, Chief Executive Officer, Indian National Shipowners Association; Richard Meade, Managing Editor, Lloyds List; Anne Steffenson, Director General and Chief Executive Officer, Danish Shipping; Mikael Lind, Associate Professor, Senior Strategic Research Advisor, Safety and Transport Department Safety Research, RISE Research Institutes of Sweden; Stephen Gordon, Managing Director, Clarksons Research Services Ltd; Cyrus Mody, Deputy Director, ICC International Maritime Bureau (IMB); Vice Admiral G Ashok Kumar (PVSM, AVSM, VSM), Vice Chief of Naval Staff (VCNS), Indian Navy.