Gujarat, TN have maritime potential like Japan, Korea: Govt

Maritime clusters in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu have potential to become hubs for ship-building, marine products and maritime services on the lines of Japan and Korea, the government today said.
"The report (Sagarmala draft) on port-led industrial development of coastal economic clusters identifies two major maritime clusters in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, similar to the global success stories in Japan and South Korea," the Ministry of Shipping said in a statement.
The ship-building market is dominated by Japan, Korea and China, which account for 90 per cent of the world's capacity that is expected to grow to 150 million DWT (deadweight tonnage) by 2025 and 300 million DWT by 2035.

"India currently accounts for only 0.45 per cent of the global ship-building market and could target 3-4 million DWT of the global ship-building capacity by 2025," it said.
The ministry's estimate is India can target 0.2 per cent share of maritime services in overall GDP by 2025. Given an expected GDP of USD 6 trillion by 2025 and services' share of 50 per cent, the maritime service industry is expected to be worth around USD 6 billion by 2025.
"With the given potential, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu can emerge as major maritime clusters for India with scope of developing various components of the maritime cluster like ship-building and ancillary services, maritime services, promoting maritime tourism and marine products," the statement said.

In Gujarat, the potential marine cluster is expected to leverage the existing ecosystem and steel supplies from Hazira. It is also seen to utilise existing shipyards at Pipavav, Dahej and Hazira ports and ship-breaking yard at Alang.

The statement said the cluster will consist of existing shipyards, ancillaries at Bhavnagar with retail and leisure components, services units in Ahmedabad or Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT) and existing fish landing centres as identified by the Gujarat Maritime Board (GMB).
As for Tamil Nadu, the cluster is proposed to be developed near Chennai due to enabling conditions like existing shipyards, major ports, steel units, automotive and engineering industry, universities and colleges.

"A 100-acre land parcel owned by Kamarajar Port has been identified for cluster development in Tamil Nadu. This site is also in proximity to Kattupalli Port and shipyard," the statement said.
The report also speaks of overall opportunity of port-led industrial development for the country through 14 CEZs (coastal economic zones) proposed along the maritime states and industrial clusters under Sagarmala.
These proposed CEZs with proximity to ports have been envisioned to tap synergies from the industrial corridors to provide a thrust to manufacturing and industrialisation under the 'Make in India' initiative, it said.