Port of Rotterdam in Sagarmala MegaProject :
The Indian representatives of Port of Rotterdam reported of increased requests to shift production units to India from China. Port of Rotterdam is a North European port. It showed its interest to invest in Indian ports through Sagarmala project as well as to attract more shippers to move their goods to Europe through their facilities in the Netherlands.
Alexander Philipsen, business manager, Port of Rotterdam said “Both from the political and economic point of view companies are thinking about diversifying their production units to countries like Vietnam, Myanmar, Bangladesh and India. Our representatives in India are reporting more and more request to on production shifting from China to India and that’s happening. This will have an impact on trade flow between Asia and North Europe and ultimately to Port of Rotterdam also.”
Investing in Sagarmala and Indian ports;
Port of Rotterdam’s ambition to invest in India has begun long back from since 2005 when it participated in an Indian Port Association project to create a master plan for major Indian ports. Since then the port tried to collaborate and participate in Indian ports, but strict regulations and uncertain economic conditions kept the port at bay. On October 2019, Port of Rotterdam appointed two representatives in India and signed MoUs with Maharashtra Maritime Board and the government of Kerala.
Economic growth in India
The economic growth in India has increased the demand for practically all transport services and further highlighted the importance of efficient multimodal logistics infrastructure. The government has initiated an ambitious plan to build its multimodal logistics infrastructure which is all set to transform the country’s logistics landscape.
Testing the potential of waterways;
Hyundai experimented with car carrier IDM Symex (a very large ship used to carry logistics) by making use of coastal shipping to carry close to 800 cars to Pipavav from Chennai in February 2016, it was deemed to be a significant move within the automobile logistics sector. This was an attempt to explore the option of multimodal transport for domestic transportation. It can also be called as a step to explore the untapped potential of coastal waterways.
It further opened doors for many initiatives of coastal movement of cargo across the Indian coast – from Tamil Nadu to Gujarat ports, and of course, Bangladesh, but with not much success. Though coastal shipping complements well with road and rail for better intermodal transport, port tariffs weighed heavy.
More recently, in a major milestone for India’s push to develop its inland waterways, 16 containers set sail from Kolkata for Varanasi on an inland vessel MV RN Tagore along the Ganga River, also called National Waterway-1. Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari said this is the first time after independence that a container is being moved using an inland vessel. Gadkari announced that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will receive the container vessel at the newly-developed multimodal terminal at Varanasi.
Sagarmala MegaProject
The ongoing Sagarmala project, launched in 2015, is expected to drastically reduce the logistics cost in the country and make the logistics and transportation industry competitive. Sagarmala MegaProject is a modernisation Project costing around Rs. 2.5 lakh crore. 200 Projects have been initiated for enhancing connectivity to Indian ports. These include 112 road projects, 70 rail projects, 11 inland waterways projects, 3 pipeline projects and 15 multimodal logistics parks. These projects are being implemented by various agencies such as National Highways Authority of India, Indian Railways, Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, Inland Waterways Authority of India, major ports, CONCOR among others.
https://www.balticshipping.com/vessel/imo/8912663
https://www.itln.in/multimodal-logistics-ready-to-roll
