India has unveiled an $8bn maritime stimulus, its boldest bet yet to climb the global shipbuilding ladder.
The Union cabinet this week signed off on a ₹69,725 crore package aimed at nothing less than vaulting the country into the world’s top ten shipbuilding nations by 2030, and the top five by 2047.
It is an audacious ambition. India currently languishes 16th in global shipbuilding rankings, with capacity barely above 0.1m gross tonnes. Yet the government now talks of creating 4.5m gt of fresh capacity in the near term, with the potential to double that within a few years. The reforms are wrapped up in grand numbers: 2,500 new vessels, 250m tonnes of extra port capacity, 3m new jobs and ₹4.5trn of investment.
Ashwini Vaishnaw, the minister fronting the announcement, insisted the reforms will upgrade the sector to “global benchmarks.”
The measures include a raft of financial incentives for newbuilds, subsidies for loans, cluster development schemes and a long-awaited effort to streamline the legal thicket around arbitration and dispute resolution. A clever twist is the offer of a 40% credit note on vessels scrapped in Indian yards, a carrot to pull tonnage back home and fuel a circular economy.
