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?From today?s order book position we can grow even 100 times,? said Kumar in a recent interview with Maritime Re- porter & Engineering News. ?We will be in a position to compete with China,Korea, Japan and Vietnam. This industry is labor intensive and has the highest in- vestment multiplier. The reason why shipbuilding flourished in all of the so- called ?low wage? countries such as Japan in the 60s and 70s; Korea in the 70s and 80s; and China from 80s to the turnof the century, is that they had govern- mental support for generating employ- ment and creating a lot of down-stream industries.? ?Downstream industry investment would be around $40 billion by which the government would net $4 billion each year over and above what it gets today,? Kumar said. ?It is a win-win situation for the government too. Within two or three years, shipbuilders can help generate 10 million additional jobs only if govern- mental support is made available to the industry.? A Career Devoted to Shipbuilding Kumar?s career has been devoted to shipbuilding, as he graduated as a Naval Architect from the Indian Institute ofTechnology (IIT) Kharagpur, in West Bengal. He served with Mazagaon Docks for seven years and in 1973 established Bharati Shipyard. Beginning as a part- nership company, it was soon converted into a private limited company, and in 2004 the company went public, making it the first Indian shipyard to do so. The IPO was over-subscribed 78 times, which 30Maritime Reporter & Engineering News FEATURE SHIP REPAIR Launching India into the Global CompetitionShipbuilding, Repair & India Shipbuilding has always been close to his heart, but Vijay Kumar?s greatest desire is to see his country, India, exploit the benefits of shipbuilding for the greater good of India?s economy as a whole. To date, the shipbuilding business in India has come with more promise than production, with its market share at a mere one percent of global shipbuild- ing activity, Kumar, Managing Director of Bharati Ship- yard Ltd., is determined to help grow the shipbuilding industry not just for the good of his company, but for the good of the country as a whole. He envisions, with gov- ernment support, a dynamic growth in India?s shipbuild- ing market, projecting its output to soar to a global market share of between 5 to 7.5 percent in the next 10 years. ? by Joseph Fonseca, Mumbai MR March 12 # 4 (25-32):MR Template 3/6/2012 12:31 PM Page 30