Business IdeasPort capacity expansion may miss 2012 target
India’s government might miss a target to add capacity at its 12 major ports, as the economy grew less than anticipated and global trade slumped amid a recession, the shipping secretary said.
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The government-controlled ports would have a capacity to handle 743 million tonnes of cargo by March 31, 2012, compared with a target of 1.02 billion tonnes, Shipping Secretary K Mohandas said in an interview in New Delhi.
Investment requirements in the five years to March 2012 might drop 61 per cent to Rs 22,000 crore ($4.7 billion), Mohandas said yesterday. India’s economic growth slowed to 6.7 per cent in the year ended March, as the global recession damped world trade, prompting sea carriers to park vessels. The slowdown needed to be used to ramp up infrastructure, said Anand V Sharma, a ports and shipping consultant.
“There is greater reason to make investments now because commodity prices have come down and interest rates have declined bringing down the cost of port development,” said Sharma, director, Mantrana Maritime Advisory Pvt Ltd in Mumbai.
Impact of inadequacies
India’s finance ministry has said inadequacies in the country’s ports, power, roads and other infrastructure shaves about 2 percentage points off the economic growth rate. Asia’s third-biggest economy sought to double its share in global trade by 2020 from 1.64 per cent in 2008