2024-03-28 07:58:48
India’s share
More than 90 percent of goods trade in the world happens through shipping. Indian sellers have an important role in this industry. Many big ships of the world are completely dependent on Indian sailors. India is at third position in terms of providing maximum number of sellers to the shipping industry. China is at first and Philippines at second place. According to the Directorate General of Shipping, India’s share in global seafarers is about 10 percent.
42% increase in four years
Shipboard jobs for Indian sailors grew by 42.3% from 2013 to 2017. However, India is still far behind China in this matter. China accounts for about 33% of the total number of sellers in the world. But there is a big difference in this. Most of the sailors from China work on ships of their own country, while the sailors from India are deployed on domestic and foreign ships. That means Indian sellers are more global. This situation may change if India builds and operates more ships.
game of numbers
According to statistics, the number of Indian sellers was 1,08,446 in 2013, which reached 1,54,339 in 2017. In 2017, the number of Indian Marine officers was 62,016 while the number of other sailors was 82,734. Since then this number has increased significantly. According to recent figures the total number of Indian seafarers is 2,50,000. Of these, 1,60,000 are professionally certified seafarers who work on cargo ships. Similarly, 90,000 are deployed in cruise liners.
qualities of indians
India has been in the white list of the International Maritime Organization for a long time. Such countries have been included in this list which fully comply with the STCW-95 Convention and Code. Countries included in this list should have proper licensing systems, training centres, flag state control and port state control. Due to India being in the white list, Indian sellers are in great demand in shipping companies around the world.
what is the future
Industry experts say that the number of Indian seafarers in global shipping is expected to increase to 20 percent in the next decade. Mainly four factors are responsible for this. There are good training institutes in India. Literacy is increasing in the country. The large population of seafarers in Europe is ageing. Not only this, Indian sellers speak good English. There are about 166 maritime training institutes in the country. But about 50 percent of these academic seats are vacant. Therefore, there is great potential for expansion of the Indian seafaring pool.
Covid and Ukraine war
At the beginning of the Corona epidemic, there was a shortage of workers in cargo ships. The reason for this was that shipping companies were not coming forward to hire Indian seafarers. At such a time, the International Maritime Organization asked most countries to designate seafarers as important workers. The Government of India immediately put Merchant Navy people in this category. Also, the Ukraine war increased the demand for Indian seafarers. Before this fight, Russia and Ukraine’s share in global seafarers was 15%. But due to the war, shipping companies had to turn to countries like India.
challenges
But there are many challenges in this also. The first challenge is that the Merchant Navy will have to attract talented youth. Nowadays most of the youth are inclined towards sectors like IT. The second problem is that the ships do not have adequate training facilities. The third problem is that the number of women in this sector is very less. If these challenges are overcome, soon one in every five sellers in the world will be an Indian.