Maritime India Summit 2021

On 2nd March, 2021, Prime Minister inaugurated the second edition Maritime India Summit -2021 organised by the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways on a virtual platform

  • The 1st edition of Maritime India Summit was held in 2016 in Mumbai, Maharashtra.

Key Highlights

  • Denmark was the partner country for the three-day summit.
  • At the 2nd Maritime India Summit 2021, Chabahar Day was observed on 4th March where India proposed to include Chabahar port in the 13-nation International North South Transport Corridor. It also proposed to include Afghanistan and Uzbekistan in INSTC as members.
  • Prime Minister also launched e-book of maritime vision 2030, which is aiming to make the Indian maritime industry at par with the top global benchmark in the next 10 years.
  • The Sagar-Manthan: Mercantile Marine Domain Awareness Centre was also launched. It is an information system for enhancing maritime safety, search and rescue capabilities, security and marine environment protection.

International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC)

  • It is a 7,200-km-long multi-mode network of ship, rail, and road route for moving freight between India, Iran, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Russia, Central Asia and Europe.
  • The current INSTC project was initiated by Russia, India and Iran in September 2000 in St. Petersburg. The agreement was signed on 16th May 2002.
  • The objective of the corridor is to increase trade connectivity between major cities such as Mumbai, Moscow, Tehran, Baku, Bandar Abbas, Astrakhan, Bandar Anzali, etc.

Member States

  • India, Iran, Russia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Belarus, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Oman, Ukraine, Syria.
  • Observer member —Bulgaria.

Significance

  • It will provide an alternative connectivity initiative to countries in the Eurasian region as against BRI of China.
  • It will also synchronize with the Ashgabat agreement, a Multimodal transport agreement signed by India (2018), Oman (2011), Iran (2011), Turkmenistan (2011), Uzbekistan (2011) and Kazakhstan (2015) for creating an international transport and transit corridor facilitating transportation of goods between Central Asia and the Persian Gulf.

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