Category Archives: Shipping

Responding to November 2020 export figures, Sharad Kumar Saraf, President, FIEO, says that the monthly exports have shown a single-digit negative growth of 8.74 per cent with US$ 23.52 billion due to supply side disruptions including restricted container movement and declining petroleum exports due to its crashing prices. Besides, farmers agitation in some of the hinterland states have also affected exports during the month. Exports have been seeing signs of revival as order booking position has continuously improved and more new orders are in the offing. Saraf reiterated that the forecast of the arrival of the Covid-19 Pandemic vaccine along with gradual lifting of lockdown across the country and the globe has also helped in boosting the business sentiments for the sector as a whole, which can be expected to be seen from the positive figures of the upcoming months. Going by this trend, we expect to end the financial 2020-21 with an overall merchandise exports of about US$290 billion, adds FIEO President. Exporters have continuously been receiving a lot of enquiries and orders further adding to the positive sentiments with signals of further resilience in the global supply chain. However, the litmus test for the traditional sectors of our exports would be the Christmas and New year sale. If that goes well, the inventory will be liquidated, adding to further demand, observed Saraf. FIEO Chief said that the exports of other cereals along with oil meals, iron-ore, rice, ceramic products and glassware, handicrafts excluding hand-made carpet, cereal preparations and miscellaneous processed item, carpet, jute mfg. including floor covering, spices, drugs and pharmaceuticals, tobacco, cotton yarn/fabrics/made-ups, handloom products etc., fruits and vegetables, tea, gems and jewellery, mica, coal and other …

With the demand for upgraded skills for port-led development increasing, the JNPT-Antwerp Port Training & Consultancy Foundation has announced an online course in Break Bulk Handling at the training centre. The programme has been devised after extensive consultations with the Ports and the other stakeholders. The aim of this online course is to provide training and expertise to port professionals and share the best practises prevailing at the leading terminals of Port of Antwerp. The online training sessions are led by faculty from APEC, Belgium and the Indian Experts, the sessions will be attended by officers from the Government Ports as well as Private Ports. Commenting on the training program, Sanjay Sethi, IAS, Chairman, JNPT says, “The participation in this course will help create common understanding of the safety and efficiency standards which will ensure safe and timely cargo handling. We intend to host many such courses after feedback from the private sector and the major ports. We are delighted with our APEC association, who has trained over 14,000 trainees from across 150 countries, since its inception making it the natural choice of Port-related trainings for port officials.”

Chowgule Shipyards has announced that it has successfully delivered India’s first vessel in the export market since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The general cargo vessel, named ‘Lady Hedwig’ for Netherlands based client ‘Wijnne & Barends’ is 98.2 m in length Overall, 13.4 m in breadth moulded, 7.8 m in depth and has a draft of 5.6 m. This is the third from a series of six vessels ordered by the client and the shipyard is proud to build Ice Class Swedish Finnish 1A quality vessels for world market, again first of its kind from India. The vessel has sailed today from Goa on her maiden voyage. Commenting on the development, Arjun Chowgule, Executive Director, Chowgule & Company says, “We are proud to be the first in India to achieve this feat since the COVID-19 pandemic. Our team worked relentlessly towards building the vessel before the set timeline and ensured that its delivery is not affected despite the pandemic. In the absence of OEM service engineers due to COVID-19 restrictions, our team performed the tasks of commissioning equipment themselves, supported remotely by OEMs. This achievement reiterates our focus on being a serious player in the international shipbuilding market We will continue to work on delivering such world-class vessels in future too, in line with our Prime Minister’s vision of an ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’.”

With an aim to make the postage cheap and easy, Gxpress is all set to launch an operating system called Ecomgistics for e-commerce for small parcels in India, starting from 50 grams. The sellers also have an option to consolidate the small parcels in a single box and send to the desired location. Sellers will get the lowest shipping prices with free small parcel tracking, without sacrificing the quality of service. Its vision is to empower small to medium sized businesses and entrepreneurs so that they can really focus on their business instead of worrying about operational activities such as shipments, custom clearances and other challenges when are shipping internationally. Gxpress’ easy-to-use website will enable them to book a pickup, estimate cost, and track their packages and more. “The logistics industry has been completely standstill since the start of the beginning of the unprecedented crisis of Covid-19 and lockdowns, ensuring that the supply chains remain intact. Due to the shortage of labour and the restrictions being imposed on the movement of goods and businesses, the supply chain has been disrupted in the past six months. Now, as the businesses started opening, we have planned to launch Ecomgistics for small businesses because we at Gxpress understand the obstacles faced by companies especially when they have to ship small parcels from India but cannot due to high shipping costs. We will focus on empowering small to medium sized businesses and entrepreneurs in the growth of their customers by giving them the option to consolidate the small parcels in a single box and send to the desired location” said Praveen Vashistha, Founder & Director of Gxpress. Gxpress has a mission to build the …

With a 14 per cent growth quarter on quarter, India’s containerised export is helping the country’s trade recover, explains Maersk report on India’s import-export trade update from Q3 of 2020 (July – September). During Q3 of 2020, the Indian containerised trade contracted by about 8 per cent as compared to the same period last year. However, comparing to Q2 of 2020, there has been a 31 per cent increase in volumes, indicating that trade is on a path of recovery. Exports out of India are up by 14 per cent over Q3 of last year while they are 47 per cent higher than Q2 of 2020. Imports are however 28 per cent lower than Q3 of 2019, but have recovered by more than 30 per cent from Q2 2020. The rising demand for Indian textiles and apparels, especially to the North American markets, has driven tremendous growth in exports in the past quarter. Textiles and apparels contribute a quarter of exports to North America, and these volumes delivered a growth of 10 per cent over the same quarter last year. The exports of textiles and apparels to the Mediterranean markets also grew by 10 per cent. Other commodities that witnessed growth in exports include tile, stone and glass to the North European region, and seeds, beans, cereal and flour to the Middle East and Mediterranean countries. Imports into India start showing first signs of recovery Q3 of 2020 was yet another quarter where imports were lower than the same period in 2019, however there is some growth compared to Q2 of 2020. Imports of commodities such as paper, metal, appliances and kitchenware have increased since the last quarter, though they …

Chowgule Brothers has announced the successful management of W Oslo, the largest cargo ship to be handled at the inner harbour of Visakhapatnam port. The vessel’s entry to the port was orchestrated by Chowgule Brothers in close association with the Vizag port, thereby establishing its expertise in handling cargo as well as charters of all sizes. Port of Visakhapatnam has created a new record by handling the said vessel. The Merchant vessel W. OSLO was carrying 87,529 tonnes of Steam Coal from Richards Bay, South Africa for M/s Sarda Metal and Alloys, Sarda Energy Minerals for discharging at Visakhapatnam Port. The port agency for the entire shipment was Chowgule Brothers Private Limited. The vessel is expected to sail from the port on December 7, 2020. The receiver of the cargo, Sharda Metals approached Chowgule Brothers to be their shipping agency for the large vessel with coal from South Africa. The specific requirement was to enable the movement of the gigantic ship into the inner harbour at Visakhapatnam port. Chowgule Brothers worked with the port authorities in the smooth berthing of the vessel with a beam measuring 38 meters that is almost twice the size of two lawn tennis courts. Commenting on this achievement, Aditya Chowgule, Director, Chowgule Brothers, said, “The entire exercise of enabling the berthing of W Oslo at Visakhapatnam Port is an example of Chowgule Brothers belief in adding value and going the extra mile for making the client’s requirement possible. We are thankful to the Vizag port authorities for helping us in this very challenging execution. The successful completion of this project has driven us to set the bar higher when it comes to delivering logistical solutions …

Responding to November 2020 export figures, Sharad Kumar Saraf, President, FIEO, said that the monthly exports have shown a single-digit negative growth of 9.07 per cent with US$ 25.77 billion due to supply side disruptions including restricted container movement and declining petroleum exports due to its crashing prices. Besides, farmers’ agitations in some of the hinterland states have also affected exports during the month. Exports have been seeing sign of revival as order booking position has continuously improved and more new orders are in the offing. Saraf reiterated that the forecast of the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic vaccine along with gradual lifting of lockdown across the country and the globe has also helped in boosting the business sentiments for the sector as a whole, which can be expected to be seen from the positive figures of the upcoming months. “Going by this trend, we expect to end the financial 2020-21 with an overall merchandise exports of about US$ 290 billion,” he adds. Exporters have continuously been receiving a lot of enquiries and orders further adding to the positive sentiments with signals of further resilience in the global supply chain. However, the litmus test for the traditional sectors of our exports would be the Christmas and New Year sale. If that goes well, the inventory will be liquidated, adding to further demand, observed Saraf. FIEO Chief said that the exports of other cereals along with oil meals, iron-ore, rice, ceramic products and glassware, handicrafts excluding hand-made carpet, cereal preparations and miscellaneous processed item, carpet, jute mfg. including floor covering, spices, drugs and pharmaceuticals, tobacco, cotton yarn/fabrics/made-ups, handloom products etc., fruits and vegetables, tea, gems and jewellery, mica, coal and other …

GEODIS has structured its internal network of women and its mission is to give GEODIS employees opportunities to express themselves, to propose, initiate or relay actions that positively contribute to gender parity and to the assumption of responsibilities of women. The network also intends to act on the reputation of the logistics and transport industry, a traditionally male sector, in order to change its image and attract more women. The company has held its annual summit of the ‘GEODIS Women Network’ (GWN). “We want to continue the action taken and give women the means to access key positions. Our goal is to increase the number of women in managerial positions”, indicates, Mario Ceccon, Human Resources Director of the GEODIS group. “13% in 2017, they are now 18% women in management positions. We have set ourselves the objective of reaching 25% by 2023.” The GWN works for inclusion, reduction of professional disparities between men and women, improved work-life balance and equal career prospects. “With a President at its head, GEODIS is already sending a strong signal showing the access by women to positions of responsibility” indicates Mario Ceccon. Over the next 3 years, the GWN will focus its actions on the following various objectives: • Study and harmonization of possible pay gaps, • The establishment of a leadership program aimed at empowering women, • The development of the recruitment and representation of women in the transport and logistics industry. Attract more women to the Logistics & Transport sector The other objective of the network is to deconstruct the image of the sector by acting in favour of actions aimed at encouraging women to join the logistics and transport professions. “We encourage …

TIFFA EDI Services and Kale Logistics Solutions have joined hands to promote paperless trade in the maritime sector of Thailand through their integrated and comprehensive Port Community System (PCS). The integrated platform empowers the SME players in the value chain to automate their internal business processes in an end-to-end manner. Kerry Siam Seaport, SITC Container Lines and Kline Logistics, have signed up this platform for e-DO services and many more are in the process of signing up. Talking about the development, Vineet Malhotra, Director, Kale Logistics Solutions, says, “Our relationship with Thailand and TIFFA is more than 7 years. We have empowered the air cargo sector with digitisation of air waybills and now we look at digitising the maritime sector. Our domain expertise and experience of working in 27 countries and executing global IT projects in maritime and air cargo space will add value to our PCS platform in Thailand. He further adds, “We are hopeful that this digital platform will play a key role in improving Thailand’s Logistics Performance Index (LPI) ranking with World Bank and Trade Facilitation Agreement initiatives with World Trade Organization (WTO)”. Expressing their delight over the development, Suwit Ratanachinda, Chairman, TIFFA EDI Services says, “We are offering this solution to ease all stakeholders with this challenging situation of risk from the COVID-19. The old-style Delivery Orders (DO) process which takes time and paper-intensive operations are prone to errors and increased the spread of virus through document exchange. The initiative of e-DO service is to facilitate ease of doing business to freight forwarders, shipping lines, transporters, terminal operators and Port authorities. This solution offers an open integrated platform connecting all cargo stakeholders on single platform for …

Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways has issued a draft of the Merchant Shipping Bill, 2020 for public consultation. It aims to repeal and replace the Merchant Shipping Act, 1958 (Act No. 44 of 1958) and the Coasting Vessels Act, 1838 (Act No. 19 of 1838). The Merchant Shipping Bill, 2020 has been drafted with the primary aim of promoting the growth of the Indian shipping industry by incorporating the best practices adopted by other advanced countries like the U.S., Japan, U.K., Singapore and Australia. All up-to-date IMO Conventions/protocols, to which India is a party, have been adopted in it. Adequate provisions are incorporated to ensure the safety and security of vessels, safety of life at sea, prevent marine pollution, provide for maritime liabilities and compensations, and ensure comprehensive adoption of India’s obligations under International Conventions. The envisioned advantages of the Merchant Shipping Bill, 2020 are following: • Promoting ease of doing business- The Bill does away with requirement of general trading license for Indian vessels • Embracing digital technology- It enables electronic means of registration, and grants statutory recognition to electronic agreements, records, and log books, in addition to electronic licenses, certificates and payments. • Increasing tonnage and Vessel as a Tradable Asset-The Bill seeks to increase India’s tonnage by widening the eligibility criteria for ownership of vessels and providing for the registration of bareboat charter cum demise, thereby increasing opportunities for international trade. • India as a Bankable Shipping Jurisdiction & avoidance of situations leading to wreck -The proposed Bill seeks to introduce for the first-time statutory framework for regulating maritime emergency response against maritime incidents. The provisions seek to provide for time effective implementation of response mechanisms …