July 12, 2016: Road Transport, Highways & Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari Gadkari held bilateral talks with the US Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx in Washington on July 11 aimed at strengthening and expanding India’s relations with the US by enhancing bilateral cooperation in infrastructure sector. Considering India’s ambitions of becoming an international manufacturing hub and its focus on port driven logistics, the minister highlighted investment opportunities in the Indian maritime sector and invited US investments in building ports, port-led industrialisation, coastal economic zones, construction of new berths/terminals in existing ports like JNPT, Mumbai and Kandla Ports, capital and maintenance dredging, mechanisation, hinterland connectivity and evacuation infrastructure, ship building, ship repairing and ship recycling.
Thus, by way of creating world class infrastructure, the minister hopes to add two percentage points to India’s GDP. Given that the country clocked a 7.6 percent growth rate in 2015-16 when there was a global slowdown. Gadkari expects a 50-60 Billion USD foreign investment for infrastructure and another 100 Billion USD towards industrial development for port-led economic growth in the maritime sector and inland waterways, water transport, coastal and cruise shipping and solar and wind energy generation to provide further impetus to the country’s growth.
At the recently held Maritime India Summit, more than 150 projects were identified, under the ambitious Sagarmala Programme. India has 7,500 Kms. long coastline, 212 ports, 70 coastal districts, one billion tone cargo handling currently, 111 waterways and 90 percent of export-import trade (by volume) handled at ports. There is a huge potential for tapping hundreds of islands and lighthouses for tourism. Apart from port-led development, the minister shall also focus on increasing the scope of Indo-US cooperation in innovative technologies for improving highway development, road engineering, road safety and development of green fuels in automobile sector and electric vehicles. The minister is expected to hold interactions soon with investors and conventions organised the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce, J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs and US Indian Business Council etc. Some of these interactions will be a follow up of the deliberations at the Maritime India Summit in Mumbai where a large number of US companies had depicted interest in promoting bilateral cooperation with India in Maritime sector.
US companies shall be invited for technology collobration in road and highway building, road engineering, innovations in automobile sector, road safety and green fuels.