India Deepens Global Maritime Partnerships with Major Reforms and Green Shipping Push
India strengthens global maritime partnerships, modernises port governance, and accelerates green, digital and infrastructure reforms across the maritime sector.
New Delhi, 2025: The Government of India has intensified its global maritime outreach, engaging with foreign governments, multilateral bodies, and leading global industry partners to advance collaboration across ports, shipping, and maritime geo-logistics. These engagements focus on port modernisation, shipping infrastructure development, green shipping, digitization, and maritime skilling.
Recent milestone partnerships include the India–Russia collaboration on the Northern Sea Route, Eastern Maritime Corridor, and training of Indian seafarers in polar navigation. India has also established the Indo-Danish Centre of Excellence in Green Shipping and advanced work on the India-Singapore Green & Digital Shipping Corridor.
Through Joint Working Group meetings, bilateral engagements, and MoUs/LoIs, India is exploring new maritime cooperation opportunities with Norway, Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, South Korea, Singapore, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Oman, and several others.
The India Maritime Week 2025, held in Mumbai from 27–31 October 2025, witnessed significant global participation — over 85 countries and more than 100,000 delegates, marking it as one of the largest international maritime events hosted by India.
In parallel, the Government has pushed major legislative reforms to modernize India’s maritime governance architecture. New laws passed by Parliament include the Merchant Shipping Act, 2025, Coastal Shipping Act, 2025, Indian Ports Act, 2025, Bills of Lading Act, 2025, Carriage of Goods by Sea Act, 2025, and the Marine Aids to Navigation Act, 2021. The Major Port Authority Act, 2021, replacing the 1963 legislation, provides major ports enhanced autonomy and flexibility to attract private investment.
Multiple initiatives are underway to strengthen maritime operations nationwide. These include the One Nation, One Port initiative for uniform port standards, large-scale mechanisation, greater PPP participation, and port digitisation. Green initiatives such as the Harit Sagar Guidelines 2023 and establishment of green hydrogen/ammonia hubs in three major ports under the National Green Hydrogen Mission are also advancing rapidly. Modernisation of inland waterways through the Jal Marg Vikas Project further supports energy-efficient cargo movement.
This information was provided by the Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.