Work has finished on India’s first transshipment container port, the $925m Vizhinjam International Seaport in the southwestern state of Kerala.
The deepwater port was built in the Keralan capital Thiruvananthapuram by Indian conglomerate Adani Group. Adani built it as a public-private partnership and will operate it for 60 years.
The first phase will handle 1 million 20 foot-equivalent units (TEUs) a year; later phases will add 6.2 million TEUs.
According to the port, it will position India as a top global transshipment hub, thanks to its state-of-the-art facilities and its location on shipping routes connecting Europe, the Gulf, and the Asia-Pacific.
The port will receive large container ships that most Indian ports are too shallow to berth. They will then unload their cargo to be transported to smaller ports on smaller ships. The company published a video explaining the project on YouTube.
The port will make a contribution to India’s underdeveloped port sector. India’s Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways said in February that throughput at the country’s container terminals stood at 17 million TEUs in 2020, compared with 245 million in China.
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