Coastal Shipping of Containerized Cargo in Maritime Transportation – An Detailed Study

The maritime transportation in the economic development of India can be seen from the fact that 95% of country‟s trade by volume and 77% by value moves by sea. The Indian seaborne trade has been growing at a CAGR of 11.38% for the past 10 years, and it was the highest, 12.25%, prior to the global slowdown. This growth rate indicates that the Indian seaborne trade will be grown to the level of 2,134 million tonnes by the year 2020 from the present level of 598.70 million tonnes. At present Indian seaborne trade constitutes only 3.66% of the global seaborne trade and with the kind of projections mentioned, it can reach a significant 9.3% by the year 2020. Despite having a rich and proud Maritime tradition and a long coastline of about 7517km studded with 13 major and 185 Non-Major (Minor / Intermediate) ports , the potential of coastal shipping has not yet been fully exploited in India.