| (HD Hyundai Heavy Industries) |
An Indian delegation led by Secretary T.K. Ramachandran of the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways visited South Korea’s major shipyards earlier this month, in an apparent move to seek cooperation in boosting India's shipbuilding industry.
According to industry sources on Thursday, the delegates met with officials in Seoul from Korea’s top three shipbuilders — HD Hyundai, Hanwha Ocean and Samsung Heavy Industries — as well as at their shipyards located in Ulsan and Geoje, South Gyeongsang Province.
The company officials declined to further elaborate on the high-level visit, while Indian media speculated on potential technology cooperation and investment between the countries as a purpose of the visit.
This visit comes amid the Indian government’s renewed push to strengthen its position in the global shipbuilding industry. Concerned about high shipping costs paid to multinational shippers, India reportedly aims to add at least 1,000 commercial ships to its fleet over a decade to boost the economy.
As the world’s second-largest steelmaker, India is also eager to expand its steelmaking capacity into the shipbuilding sector. Despite lacking shipyards capable of constructing large vessels such as very large gas carriers, very large crude oil carriers and container carriers, the country plans to develop large-scale shipbuilding clusters in multiple regions along its eastern and western coasts, including one in the western state of Gujarat, the home of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
As part of a goal of becoming one of the world’s top 10 shipbuilding nations by 2030 and top five by 2047, India has increasingly made fresh overtures to Korean and Japanese shipbuilders.
During a government council meeting in September, the Indian minister cited Hanwha Ocean and Samsung Heavy Industries, as well as Japan’s Mitsubishi Shipbuilding and Mitsui Engineering, as potential partners for the planned shipbuilding cluster.
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