Governor K Rosaiah urged business leaders in the maritime industry to make the best of the tremendous untapped potential of the country. He was speaking at the inauguration of Cargo Scope 2013, organised by the Southern Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Chennai, on Friday.
“There is tremendous potential in the coastal shipping and inland waterways sector, which remains untapped. With increase in the cost of capital, high wage cost etc, the logistics industry should come forward to create new business models with innovative ideas. Bringing down logistics cost for the country’s domestic and international trade and making India’s exports competitive is necessary,” he said.
The maritime traffic in the country is set for tremendous growth, he said. “It is said that traffic at major ports will grow at a Compounded Annual Growth Rate of about 8 percent from 561 million tonnes to 1,215 million tonnes by 2019-20, whereas the traffic at non-major ports is expected to be 2,485 million tonnes by 2019-20 from the present level of 850 million tonnes at a growth rate of more than 11 percent,” he said.
Facilitating seamless logistics through excellent road and rail connectivity to the cargo handling, establishing distribution centres and developing state-of-the-art ports and supporting facilities are the prime agendas of the state ad Central governments, he said.
“The maritime agenda 2010-20 for Indian shipping industry for the next 10 years aims at increasing the Indian tonnage fourfold to 42 Million Gross Tonnage. I am confident that the shipping fraternity will achieve this,” he said.
He highlighted that global maritime industry and the Indian shipping trade are passing through one of the toughest challenges at present. The governor said that the international economic scenario as well as the domestic situation is extremely volatile. This, coupled with the present fluctuation in he exchange rate, is adding a new dimension to the problem, he added.
The event Cargo Scope International Conference and Exhibition saw over 250 delegates from various parts of India and abroad. About 60 stalls were put up at the exhibition. Cargo Scope will end today.