Maritime India summit: Government ropes in South Korea as partner country

India seeks to focus on ship building in partnership with South Korea during the ‘Maritime India Summit’ scheduled to be held from April 14-16 in Mumbai. India looks to launch a process to achieve the status of maritime power with the summit. India also hopes to take advantage of its huge coastline and geographical position in the Indian Ocean Region. One of the areas that would be focussed on during the summit will be on ship building, and South Korea has been chosen as India’s partner for the summit. The summit is expected to host delegates from 57 countries, and will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The summit will focus on ship building, setting up of new ports, capacity augmentation of existing ports, development of inland waterways for cargo and passenger transportation, coastal shipping, island development, aquatic resources and maritime cluster development along with other sectors. South Korea is a world leader in ship building. India is in discussions with Seoul for partnership in purchasing as well as jointly developing LNG tankers with transfer of technology, according to unnamed officials. Developing naval ships in future is likely to be a major area of discussion between the two countries. Some of the projects in port development include projects such as the satellite port for JNPT planned at Dahanu, north-west of Mumbai, international transshipment terminal at Colachel in Tamil Nadu and Sagar port in West Bengal.