Dun & Bradstreet report - Port Logistics: Issues & Challenges in India
Posted on: 13/Feb/2018 6:13:11 PM
Dun & Bradstreet, which grows the most valuable relationships in business by uncovering truth and meaning from data, shared a detailed report of its study titled ‘Port Logistics: Issues & Challenges in India’ with Shree Suresh Prabhu, Honourable Minister of Commerce & Industry, and Dr Bibek Debroy, Chairman of PMEAC.
India has set an ambitious export target. To achieve a target of 5% share in world exports, India’s exports need to grow at an average rate of over 26% for the next five years. This would require increasing its product competitiveness. Enhancing product competitiveness in the global market, in turn, needs infrastructure for trade to improve, and ports are a critical part of trade infrastructure.
Thus, the study encapsulates key issues and challenges and also proposes various policy measures to strengthen the ports sector, which represents the bulk of India’s merchandise trade. This is a unique and important study on Indian ports, capturing information from key stakeholders in the port ecosystem across all the major ports. Additionally, the study introduces a ‘Port Performance Index’ as an attempt to benchmark performance of various ports by combining qualitative perception of stakeholders with quantitative outcome based data.
While much research has been carried out in the logistics segment, the current study is unique on the port ecosystem. Covering 14 ports which handle around 67% of India’s maritime trade, and engaging with 700 respondents pan India, the findings of the study obtained through both primary and secondary research highlight specific issues, some common and some unique to the ports covered in the study.
The Dun&Bradstreet team reached out to more than 700 stakeholders comprising government officials, trade associations, exporter/importers, cargo handling agents, freight forwarders and collected feedback of these stakeholders on both qualitative and quantitative aspects of business transactions at ports. Such rich ground-level data and insights were then analyzed using statistical tools and meaningful insights synthesized for policy purposes.
