India aims to promote cruise cooperation and cruise corridors with ASEAN to focus on infrastructure standardisation, knowledge exchange, and stakeholder incentives. This was one of the agendas at the two-day ASEAN–India Cruise Dialogue 2025.

The first session was held aboard the MV Empress, a Cordelia Cruises Ship, at the Chennai Port. This was organised by the Cruise Bharat Mission Secretariat, under the Union Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways.

“Developing cruise tourism between India and ASEAN has a lot of potential. The two-day dialogue is to look at various issues on either side,” Sarbananda Sonowal, Union Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways , told newspersons. This is the second edition of the dialogue between India and ASEAN, he added.

The forum brought together over 30 delegates from all 10 ASEAN member States and Timor Leste, alongside over 40 senior government and industry representatives from India, he said .

The Minister said that the Centre has laid a lot of focus on developing cruise tourism . The number of cruise passengers has increased multi-fold to 5 lakh from 84,000 in 2014. The number of cruise ships calling at Indian ports have more than doubled to 297 as against 102 calls, he said.

On Monday, officials from the two sides were engaged in an in-depth discussion on regulatory frameworks, best practices in cruise sector, connectivity challenges, a way forward and optimising partnerships to enhance cruise operations across ASEAN and Indian ports. On Tuesday, two sessions will be held at Mamallapuram, where participants will discuss, amongst other topics, heritage-driven tourism in the region, says a release.

On Monday, the Minister also laid the foundation stone for four projects at Chennai port with a total project cost of ₹67 crore.

The cruise terminal will be developed at a cost of ₹20 crore to double the passenger handling capacity to 3,000 passengers by October 2025; development of a paved storage yard in 9.90 hectares at ₹37 crore and development of Seafarers Club at ₹5 crore.

He also laid the foundation stone to covert the old hydraulic power house into a historic monument – a museum for public exhibit – at ₹5.25 crore. This building, constructed during 1920, used to supply steam power to ships at Chennai Port, the release said.

Meanwhile the Chennai port has commenced the acquisition of its first electric Green Tug of 60-ton bollard-pull capacity.

Published on June 30, 2025