The Indian shipping industry Sailing on ; come wind or water

摘要

As India makes a transition from an "import-substitution" closed economy model to an outward-oriented trade regime, the importance of shipping, as an enabler of trade and economic growth cannot be over emphasized. However, the country's transport infrastructure still remains underdeveloped. While, around INK 100 billion (2.5 billion US dollars) of investments have been made in the last 5 years to augment port facilities in the country, Indian ports still lag far behind the international ports in container traffic. Freight costs, measured as a percentage of total value of imports (cost insurance freight or c.i.f.) are around 10.3 percent, one of the highest in the world. Against this, the global average is around 5.24 percent and the average for all developing economies is around 8.04 percent. Massive improvement in transport infrastructure is necessary to enable future trade and economic growth.