Vedanta President Anil Agarwal has called for an urgent renaissance of the India Maritime Indian industry, warning that the nation is far behind China in the world maritime rule. “Did you know that while China has more than 5,000 large ships in its commercial fleet, India has less than 500?” Agarwal published in X, emphasizing a surprising defasation in commercial shipping capacity.

He said that international trade is “completely dominated by Chinese ships”, saying that “98% of the world’s commercial fleet is run by companies that are Chinese or using Chinese manufacturing ships.”

India, on the contrary, is “surrounded by sea by three sides” and has a “glorious history as a maritime nation,” said Agarwal. He urged the collective effort: “There should be no difference between the public and private sectors. They are all one in this purpose. To use a sending sentence, our strategic interests need all hands on the cover.”

While Agarwal figures dramatize China’s control over world commercial lanes, official data paints a more nuanced image. In January 2024, China controls about 19% of the world commercial fleet. But its naval construction domain is indisputable, with a global market share that went from less than 5% in 1999 to more than 50% in 2023. The country also manufactures 95% of worldwide shipping containers and 86% of intermodal chassis.

In the meantime, India ranks 16th in world maritime and has ambitions to introduce -in the first 10 nations of naval construction by 2030, and the first 5 by 2047. Its ports manage 95% of trade per volume and 70% for value. The load traffic to the Indian ports amounted to 819.22 million tonnes in 2014, an annual increase of 4.45%.

To close the gap, India is launching a series of initiatives: the Bharat container shipping line, a coastal green shipping corridor (Kandla – Tuticorin), the investments of 100 ÚFI in the interior aquatic routes and 150 key projects in the Ministry of Ports until September 2025. The initiative and innovation of innovation has also been launched to feed the maritime entrepreneurship.