India Seatrade to organize ‘Coastal Shipping & IWT Business Summit’ in Kochi on Aug 30

As shipping gets smarter and more sustainable, India Seatrade will organize the 7th edition of the ‘Coastal Shipping and IWT Business Summit’ here on August 30 to address on how short sea and container feeder shipping can best secure a stronger future.

India Seatrade, the organizer of this event, works with the sole purpose of creating perfect platforms to engage the policy makers, the industry and its stakeholders to work towards and developing a holistic road map for our nation’s maritime growth, a release said here on Thursday.

Connectivity is one of the critical enablers for ports as it is the end-to-end effectiveness of the logistics system that drives competitiveness for industry. With infusion of new technology and capacity building, the total capacity available at ports can match requirements.

However, when evacuation of cargo is slow, ports are unable to handle additional traffic. Then, despite having adequate capacity and modern handling facilities, the ports are not able to ensure a quicker turnaround of ships, the release said.

Sessions of the business summit will look at adapting to the changing economic demands for transportation in India’s logistics landscape.

As part of it, delegates will learn about the strategic importance of short sea shipping and re-engineering of supply chains and the modal shift it could create from accompanied trailers to containers. It will also look at the challenges around road haulage industry and the shortage of manpower in logistics.

India Seatrade strives to bring together experts and leaders associated with the Indian maritime industry towards fuelling constructive dialogue aimed at all round maritime development.

All the events organised by India Seatrade work towards bringing about the convergence of ideas that in turn lead to investments in the right avenues and positive transformation of the industry.

India’s hinterland connectivity is mainly based on road and rail with domestic waterways— both coastal shipping and inland waterways—playing a limited role.

Pipelines are predominantly used for transporting crude oil, refined petroleum products and natural gas. Connectivity challenges in India are as problematic as port capacity and efficiency, if not more.

Even new ports that have world class equipment and turnaround times are hamstrung because of poor connectivity. Compounding this problem is the long logistics lead distance of India versus comparable countries, the release added.

(UNI)