India is committed to making the country one of the top five shipbuilding and repairing nations in the world in the next decade.
Recently, India's Ministry of Shipping proposed the development of shipbuilding clusters on India's east and west coasts to revolutionise the country's maritime economy, stating that the proposal takes a cue from China and South Korea's maritime clusters and aims to stimulate the development of India's shipbuilding industry and boost the country's economic growth.
Specifically, the proposal will provide a strategic roadmap for India's shipbuilding industry, with a focus on identifying ideal locations covering at least 1,000 acres along India's east-west coastline and 4-5km of waterfront, with the aim of setting up three to four shipyards of international standards in each cluster through partnerships with business organisations and the implementation of the Sagarmala scheme, which provides funding for critical infrastructure.
The proposal means that India can partner with leading global shipbuilders, mainly Korean and Japanese shipbuilders, and set up shipbuilding subsidiaries at selected locations. Such co-operation could bring advanced shipbuilding knowledge, technology and markets to the Indian shipbuilding industry and help enhance the competitiveness of the country's shipbuilding industry. At the same time, the Indian authorities must develop a set of strong rules and regulations to help shipbuilding clusters to obtain a global scope of international orders, thus ensuring its competitive advantage in the global shipbuilding industry.
Foreign media reports that India's shipping department has applied to China, South Korea and other countries to apply for low-interest working capital loans. Brazil, for example, the country through the establishment of merchant marine fund, for shipyards to provide interest rates from 4 per cent to 6 per cent ranging from long-term loans. With the shipbuilding industry ushering in a new round of prosperity, India has said that new shipyards included in shipbuilding clusters can get 10 years of tax exemption, tariff exemption for imported parts and components of ships, and six years of income tax relief.
Drawing on China's experience in shipbuilding, India plans to provide access, investment and production subsidies to reduce shipbuilding costs in the country. Maritime-specific fund arrangements in other countries such as South Korea and Norway also provide incentives to shipbuilders in the country.
During the Global Maritime India Summit 2023, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has declared that "India will be one of the top five shipbuilding and repairing countries in the world in the next decade". Although India has set future goals, but at this stage the global shipbuilding industry is mainly concentrated in China, South Korea, Japan, Europe and the United States and other countries and regions, India in the global shipbuilding market share of less than 1 per cent. In order to achieve the ten-year goal of shipbuilding industry, the Indian government needs to take a series of measures to shipbuilding industry to provide policy, capital, technology, manpower and other support.
In mid-January this year, India's state-owned Cochin Shipyard's new shipyard and International Ship Repair Centre (ISRF) was successfully inaugurated, which means that the shipyard's ship repair and building capacity will be significantly increased.
As India's largest ship repair yard, Cochin Shipyard's previous largest dock measured 255x43x9 metres, with two gantry cranes of 300 tonnes and 150 tonnes, and is capable of building vessels of up to 110,000 dwt. The new dock is stepped, 310 metres long, 75/60 metres wide, 13 metres deep, with a draft of 9.5 metres, and will cost Rs 18 billion (about Rs 1.56 billion). The new dock will be fitted with a 600 tonne Goliath gantry crane, which will significantly enhance the construction capacity of Cochin Shipyard. With a design life of 100 years, the new dock will enable India to build large aircraft carriers of up to 70,000 tonnes displacement.
The International Ship Repair Centre (ISRC), which cost about Rs 9.7 billion (about Rs 840 million), has a 6,000-tonne shiplift, transfer system, six workstations and about 1,400 metres of berths, and will be able to accommodate seven 130-metre-long ships for repair at the same time. The Cochin Shipyard said the new ship repair facility is a modernisation and expansion of the existing ship repair capacity of the Cochin Shipyard and is "an important step in transforming the Cochin Shipyard into a global ship repair centre", which will increase India's ship repair capacity by about 25%.
In addition, as Japan and South Korea are facing serious demographic issues and consequently limiting the available labour force in shipyards, prompting shipowners to start looking for alternative shipyards, this provides some opportunities for the growth of the Indian shipbuilding industry.
https://www.cnss.com.cn/html/hygc/20240722/354146.html
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