The Hindu Business Line : ‘Foreign operators to dominate containerised sea-borne trade’

Foreign container operators will continue to dominate India’s containerised sea-borne trade which is growing, according to Mr S. Hajara, Chairman and Managing Director, Shipping Corporation of India.

Addressing the seventh national convention of Asian Council of Logistics Management here on Friday, Mr Hajara said the country’s largest shipping company SCI’s presence in container trade was insignificant.

There were a few other smaller lines that were active in the Indian Ocean, but together their strength was nothing to write home about.

SCI’s own container fleet, as he pointed out, now comprised three ships of the capacity of 1,800 TEUs each, to be joined shortly by two more of 4,400 TEUs each. Through participation in several consortia, the shipping line controlled around 30 ships.

“However, all this do not make much of a difference,” Mr Hajara said. “We’ll continue to have a meagre three to four per cent of the share of the trade,” he added.

India’s containerised sea-borne trade, now growing at 14 per cent CAGR compared with the world average of nine per cent, was slated to post a higher growth of more than 18 per cent by 2013-14.

The low level of containerisation at less than 50 per cent compared with more than 70 per cent in developed nations held out the promise of even a larger growth.

But India ranked 25th in Liner Shipping Connectivity Index as prepared by the UNCTAD. “We’re behind Sri Lanka,” he observed.

New challenge

The emergence of large capacity container vessels would pose a new challenge to the country’s port sector. Over 30 per cent of the container ships on order were of the capacity of 8,000 TEUs and above.

Right now, 17 out of 25 international shipping routes had in operation ships of the capacity of 9,000 TEUs and above.

SCI was poised to emerge as a logistics solutions provider as the ocean transportation covered a small segment of the total supply chain, he added.

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