Dubai major plans to drop anchor along Gujarat coast

While the investment details are not known, state government sources say the amount could be huge. "We have had preliminary meetings with ETA officials regarding their plans for Gujarat. We have invited them to participate in the Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors Summit early next year," said Capt SC Mathur, chief nautical officer of Gujarat Maritime Board (GMB), the state's shipping regulator.

 

Currently, Maersk, Shell Hazira and DP World have operations in the state. While Maersk manages the Pipavav port, Shell Hazira runs an LNG terminal in Hazira. DP World operates a container terminal in Mundra.

With the state government encouraging private participation in ports, a number of big foreign players have shown interest in investing in the state.

The ETA-Ascon group is engaged in diversified business activities and represents some of the world's leading manufacturers and service providers such as Japan's Mitsubishi Electric and Mitsubishi Heavy, Italy's Klimak, Germany's GE-AEG, Titan, and Giordano International.

The group manages and operates Ajman port and container terminal and recently acquired a shipyard in China with a capacity of 80,000 DWT (deadweight tonnage) vessels, which it will upgrade to 120,000 DWT.

Gujarat has been emerging as a major shipbuilding destination. At the global investors' summit last year, leading logistics and shipping companies in the port sector had signed MoUs worth Rs 13,500 crore.

The state, which aims to account for 50 per cent of the nation's shipbuilding activity, has decided to come up with a shipbuilding policy.

Gujarat handles 11.5 per cent of the total cargo traffic among India's major ports and 71.5 per cent of the total cargo handled by the non-major ports. The state's non-major ports handled 132.44 million tonnes (mt) in 2006-2007, an increase of 22 per cent over the previous year. The total port capacity of Gujarat grew more than three times, from 45 mt in 1995 to 197 mt, in 2006-07.