Page 76: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (August 2014)

76 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News ? AUGUST 2014 It has been a long wait for the 28 shipbuilders in India to Þ nally catch sight of opportunities to sail back into the better Þ nancial waters. The newly elected Narendra Modi?s BJP?s party brought in a strong stable govern-ment, the Þ rst in nearly 30 years, and has given an unprecedented, massive boost in promoting Indian shipping in its re-cent Union Budget. Most industry stakeholders consider this to be a very positive and unexpected turn of events, as the previous succession of governments that have been largely unsupportive of all matters maritime, de-spite the industry crying itself hoarse for a level playing Þ eld to enable it to face cut-throat overseas competition. The Indian shipbuilding industry has been in shambles: Without exception, it has been downhill for nearly all ship builders over the last decade not only because of the economic downturn but mostly because of the lack of support from the government. The Indian ship- ping tonnage too has been hovering at around 10 million DWT for several years. Because of the lack of Þ nancial and governmental support, many ship yards have been unable to prosper. Also, there has been hardly any encouragement for Indian ship owners to place orders for new buildings in India. Left to fend for themselves in the past six years, Indian shipyards have seen their share of the global order book slip from 1.3 percent to less than 0.1 percent.Of the 28 shipyards eight are govern-ment owned and 20 are in the private sector. Despite recent poor performance, India has a number of logistical advan-tages in its favor, including a vast 7,517 km coastline for shipping, a strong labor force and the low cost of labor. These advantages, however, are outweighed by the lack of high capacity shipyards, lack of trained engineers and skilled labor and almost total absence of government support and initiative.In India, most classes of vessels are allowed to be imported into the country without payment of custom duty, unlike most other shipbuilding countries. In-dian shipyards continue to be outbid by Chinese and South Korean builders be-cause of the cost differentials arising out of this lack of support for the industry. Forty percent of India?s international cargo that used to be moved on Indian bottom two decades ago has come down drastically to just 8% and the country continues to lose foreign exchange by way of freight lost to foreign lines. IndianIndian shipbuilding on the toad to recoveryIndian shipbuilders buoyed by a renewed political will, a plan and funding to help the industry recover. By Joseph R. Fonseca, Mumbai?Several new building opportunities are likely to come up in the near future as the government plans to shift at least 15% of the cargo transported by road and rail to the coastal and inland waterways.? MR #8 (74-81).indd 76MR #8 (74-81).indd 768/5/2014 9:51:44 AM8/5/2014 9:51:44 AM