Investments worth billions increase the demand for logistics services
The Indian government is currently investing in the country’s infrastructure on a massive scale – whether this involves roads, railway lines or waterways. The budget for upgrading roads alone is worth almost $14 billion until 2018. This should give a further boost to the Indian logistics market, which is already expanding at a rapid rate. Messe München is offering foreign entrepreneurs an ideal opportunity to participate in the development of this market at the transport logistic India @ CTL in Mumbai on 23 – 24 January 2018.
For the second time, Messe München is enabling interested companies to discover more about the Indian market, maintain existing contacts or establish new ones through its globally proven “transport logistic” format. There are many reasons for exploring developments on the sub-continent first-hand: The Indian government recently decided to make far-reaching investments in the country’s infrastructure with the goal of making logistics processes within the country more efficient.
“The development of the Indian logistics market was largely inhibited by the poor state of the road network in the past. Fast roads and highways only accounted for two percent of the complete road network up to now, for example,” says Vishesh Kathuria, Vice President of IMAP India. “The government has also budgeted $14 billion for 2017/18 and therefore paved the way for upgrading 14,000 km of roads.”
Kathuria believes that the distribution of freight within the modal split is another problem. “Too little consideration is given to railway and shipping traffic when it comes to cargo, although India is home to the fourth-largest railway network in the world and there are more than 15,500 km of waterways available for transport purposes.” The government is seeking to reverse this trend too. A decision was already made in 2014/15 to introduce so-called “Dedicated Freight Corridors”, for example, in order to connect the many container shipments on the north-west and north-east routes and almost triple the average speed of the trains from 25 km/h at the moment to 70 km/h. However, the expert believes that making use of the waterways provides the greatest potential. “According to estimates, opening up inland waterways provides investment opportunities amounting to $600 million.”
“The latest developments in the infrastructure sector, in the standardization of the tax system, but also in the field of digitalization and the booming e-commerce business are opening up the Indian logistics market to a large number of foreign companies. We’ve established a format with the transport logistic India @ CTL and it offers the right framework both for companies with experience of India and potential market entrants at the right time,” says Gerhard Gerritzen, a member of the management team at Messe München GmbH.
