"Don't see industry recovering for the next two years. The supply-demand mismatch continues," SCI Chairman and Managing Director A K Gupta said on the sidelines of Calcutta Freight Brokers Association meet.
He said the fundamentals haven't changed though there was some spike in December-January but "look at today's Baltic Dry Index, which is at abysmally low level of 736."
"We are concerned with recovery of Chinese economy. If its GDP recovers from 7 per cent to 10 per cent, the global shipping industry will recover. But we don't see economy recovering for the next two years," Gupta said.
However, he expected that talk of India controlled tonnage in the budget, under which the vessels would be flagged outside so we will have the tax benefits would be beneficial to the sector.
Gupta said the SCI don't have resources to diversify. "We have exited the chemical transportation JV with Forbes and in near future we don't foresee getting into it again. In near future the strategy is to survive the difficult period 'mutthi bandh karke' (with fist tightly closed) without much expenditure in order to get out of this situation," he added.