Is India losing focus on International Shipping Industry?
shipping industry worldwide.
As per BIMCO’s Manpower study, which is published every 5 years (the last being published in 2021) India ranked as the 5th largest manpower supplier in Shipping globally.
In 2021 together with Philippines, Russian Federation, Indonesia, China & India supplied bulk of the global workforce in shipping. These 5 countries collectively accounted for 44% of global supply of seafarers. India accounted for 2,50,071 active seafarers of which 1,51,840 were Ratings & 98,231 were officers. Chinese seafarers catermainly to their own national flag and / or coastal ships. The reason for Chinese being limited to their national industry is obviously due to their language barrier.
At the last count Directorate General of Shipping of India has put the number of active Indian seafarers in 2023 at 2,85,454 of which 1,79,828 are Ratings & 1,05,626 are Officers. These seafarers are working on Indian as well as foreign flag ships.
This is an increase of 6.85% over 2021 numbers despite many covid restrictions imposed on travel of Indians in general. The spread of covid in 2020 in many ways slowed down the growth in employment of Indian Seafarers as many countries notably China & Australia put additional quarantine measures on Indian Seafarers working or joining ships resulting in loss of jobs for Indian Seafarers. Thankfully the situation continues to improve after covid & Indians are reclaiming their lost ground albeit a bit slowly.
Prior to onset of Covid the number & employment of Indian seafarers had
