CHENNAI: The dwindling car exports that followed the pandemic have finally shown signs of a slow pickup at the Chennai and Kamarajar Ports in the State. Kamarajar port, which saw a drop of 50 per cent in volumes last year, is now hoping to consolidate it with two new agreements signed with vehicle makers Isuzu Motors and Daimler.
Port chairman Sunil Paliwal told Express, “They were already using our port. We have offered them volume-based concession and a long term agreement. So this year looks much better compared to the last.” He added that in 2019-2020, the port was able to do good business with vehicle volumes of two lakh, which fell to about half of it last financial year.
“There is an impact of the pandemic this year as well. However, we may be able to cross 1.5 lakh volumes,” says Paliwal. This comes as Renault India has commenced exports of its sub-4 metre compact SUV Renault Kiger to South Africa, and the first batch of 760 cars was despatched from the Kamarajar Port on Saturday.
Developed and produced in India, Renault had commenced exports to Nepal earlier this month. The cars are manufactured in the facility located at Oragadam near Chennai. The cars were jointly flagged off by Venkatram Mamillapalle, country chief executive officer and Managing Director, Renault India Operations and Paliwal.
“We look forward to expanding Kiger’s exports to many international markets soon, including Indonesia, parts of Africa and SAARC region, along with growing our customer base in India,” said Mamillapalle.
Paliwal hopes this will in turn help pick up the trade for Kamarajar Port in 2022-23. We expect to cross the export volume of more than two lakh cars. Even Chennai Port is positive on having more volumes of vehicles exported from there,” he said.
Chennai Port Chairman P Raveendran told Express that compared to the first quarter of last financial year (2020-21), this year’s corresponding quarter has been good. “During the first quarter of last year, we exported 13,500 vehicles only due to the pandemic. This quarter it has jumped by 170 per cent, that is we exported 38,600 vehicles,” he said.