

India's container sops draw interest from global shipping behemoths: Sonowal
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. India is in talks with global shipping giants and domestic companies to set up container manufacturing facilities, according to Union minister Sarbananda Sonowal, as the ₹10,000 crore budget push seeks to cut reliance on China and boost local production. Several companies have expressed interest in manufacturing and demand aggregation for containers made in India, Sonowal, ports, shipping and waterways minister, said, citing names including the world's largest container shipping line Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC); second-placed and Danish giant A.P.
Moller - Maersk and No. 3 and Marseille-based CMA CGM; along with domestic firms including JSW Group and Container Corp (Concor). “We will facilitate them to invest in container manufacturing in the country," he said in an interview with Mint.
The country aims to attract about ₹60,000 crore investments to build large-scale manufacturing capacity to build 750,000 units of 20-foot equivalent unit (TEU) dry cargo containers annually in the initial phase, he said. The country targets to ramp this up to over 7 million containers over the next decade. India’s dependence on China for containers makes domestic trade vulnerable to global supply disruptions and price volatility, as seen during the pandemic.
Official estimates suggest that the country imports nearly 2 million empty containers every year. Domestic capacity stands at 30,000 twenty-foot equivalent container units, compared to China’s six million units annually. India’s push will be anchored by the ₹10,000-crore five-year container manufacturing programme announced in the Union Budget.
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