India’s growing maritime role

Shipping heritage

With a population of 1.5 billion, India is the world’s fastest growing major economy (2025f: +7 per cent), and on track to be-come the third largest globally by 2030. Against this backdrop, India’s role in maritime is evolving, with the government increasing strategic focus on the sector. India is already the fifth largest source of seafarers (12 per cent of world total, government target 20 per cent). And India has for many decades been a prominent recycling destination, with facilities handling a third of tonnage recycled 2004- 24. In 2024, India ranked second for volumes (30 per cent share) but Indian re-cyclers also seem to be leading Bangladesh and Pakistan in preparing facilities for compliance with the HK Convention green treaty (in force from June 2025).

Demand driver

Across global seaborne trade, India is an increasingly key driver. Over the last decade, Indian seaborne imports grew by a CAGR of 2.9 per cent (global 1.7 per cent, China 4.1 per cent) to reach 830mt in 2024, 7 per cent of the global total and second only to China (3.2bt, 25 per cent). India is now the second largest importer of a range of key car-goes, including coal (19 per cent of global total), crude oil (12 per cent, including a shift to longer haul Russian crude since 2022) and LPG (16 per cent), and across all cargoes has driven 15 per cent of growth in global trade in the last decade (again behind only China that has contributed 55 per cent of growth). We project the balance of this growth share will lean towards India in the next decade, with India reaching >1.2bt of imports by 2035 (this would still be a third of China however). Indian exports have shown more muted growth, totalling 225mt in 2024, 2 per cent of the global total (India: 10th largest ex-porter), up only slightly vs 2010 (218mt), with oil products exports steady, and more minor bulk and container exports offsetting lower iron ore. Meanwhile, India’s >80 ports handled >70,000 vessel calls last year (largest tonnage handler, Mundra, is only the 50th largest globally with 224.5m GT of port calls in 2024, policy targets three ‘mega’ ports by 2030).

Maritime goals

The Indian government has a range of policies aiming to strengthen the maritime sector, including across ports, shipbuilding and recycling. Today, India is the 19th largest ship owning cluster (an underweighted 1.5 per cent of world fleet, headed by SCI, Great Eastern, Chellaram and Seven Islands) and 22nd largest flag state (0.7%), but aims to have a top 5 fleet of 100m GT by 2047. Shipbuilding (and ship repair) has a long history in India (although with a some-times mixed track record), and policy is targeting a top 10 builder by 2030 and top 5 by 2047 (2024: 13th largest order-book by CGT, 0.3 per cent share, Cochin leading). Shipbuilding is incredibly competitive (China 58 per cent of orderbook), but there may be good potential initially in smaller ships.

(The author of this feature article is Steve Gordon. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Clarksons group.)