Kalam seeks focus on ship-building industry to boost economy

Former president A P J Abdul Kalam today said the country needs to urgently focus on ship- building industry to fuel the economy.
"We have to create facilities for vessels ranging from 1,50,000 to 3,00,000 DWT with much larger output of ships per annum in terms of DWT (dead weight tonne)," he said, speaking at a conference on ports and shipping organised by the Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry here.
By 2020, if we create the capacity to build up to 30 million DWT of vessels, it will create annual revenues of USD 30 billion, he said.
"Time has come; we have to increase our capacity of ship- building of large vessels for both civil and military applications," he added.

Kalam said ship-building can help generate the crucial employment for the large number of youth and we should leverage on the lower labour costs in the country.
The former rocket scientist cited the case of South Korea as something India should look up to. He said Korea controls 40 per cent of the ship-building trade in the world and we should emulate it.
Key to the success is innovation and adapting the best of the technological solutions which are fast changing the ship building industry, he said.
The former President also stressed utilising the inland waterways better in order to facilitate the cheaper movement of goods.