India, which targets a top-10 finish by 2030 in the global shipbuilding sector, must drastically scale up its maritime manufacturing, a report says, highlighting that it needs an 11-fold production boost just to match the output of the world’s fifth-largest shipbuilding nation, Vietnam.

The report recommends developing shipbuilding and ship repair simultaneously through integrated industrial clusters, with financial support increasingly linked to contracted orders, capacity utilisation, delivery performance and realised domestic content.

It also recommended rolling out a 10-year vessel pipeline covering public and strategic requirements, standard reference designs for frequently procured vessels, long-tenure construction finance and refund-guarantee support, and demand-side financing through the Maritime Development Fund.

The report titled 'Optimising India's shipbuilding and ship repair capacity: Roadmap for industrial scale-up ', prepared jointly by Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and global consulting firm EY, was released earlier this week during a shipping conference in the financial capital.

According to the report, India accounted for just 0.075 per cent of global merchant-ship deliveries in 2025, underscoring the scale of the challenge facing the country's ambition to emerge as a leading shipbuilding nation.

Indian shipyards delivered vessels totalling 57,637 gross tonnes (GT) during the year, against 77.28 million GT globally. China, South Korea and Japan together accounted for 94.2 per cent of world deliveries, while Vietnam alone produced more than 15 times India's output, it noted.

Recent data ranks Vietnam as the fifth largest shipbuilding nation globally.

While, as per the report, the ₹69,725-crore maritime package approved by the Union Cabinet in September last year has established a policy and financing framework for expansion, the immediate challenge is to translate this support into firm orders, productive shipyards, qualified domestic suppliers and competitive delivery performance.

Noting that India's share of global shipbuilding output has remained below 0.12 per cent every year since 2020, the report said that Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision 2047 targets a top-10 global position by 2030 and a top-five position by 2047.

Based on 2025 deliveries, India would need to increase output approximately 11-fold merely to match the fifth-ranked shipbuilding economy's current level, it said.

It also said that while potential demand is substantial, converting it into firm orders remains a challenge. As of December 2025, 1,071 vessels in the Indian fleet were 16 years old or more, pointing to a significant fleet-renewal opportunity alongside coastal shipping, port services and inland waterways, where cargo movement reached a record 145.5 million tonnes in FY2024-25, as per the report.

Ship repair presents a near-term opportunity, it said, adding that between 7-9 per cent of global maritime traffic passes within 300 nautical miles of India's coastline, yet the country accounted for less than 1 per cent of the global ship-repair market in 2024.

India repaired 418 vessels in FY2023-24 across some 42 dry docks, with infrastructure, turnaround times, spares and customs procedures limiting growth.

A ₹1,570-crore repair facility approved at Vadinar in May 2026 is expected to handle about 34 large vessels a year, and in ship recycling, as per the report, India also accounted for 35.4 per cent of global ship-recycling tonnage in 2025.

Stating that the cluster programme is the principal instrument for new capacity, it said that the Shipbuilding Development Scheme provides ₹9,930 crore for common infrastructure, and five greenfield clusters, at Thoothukudi, Dugarajapatnam, Kuchhadi, Kendrapara and Dighi, had received in-principle approval by August this year.

Published on November 4, 2026