container vessels with capacities of about 3,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), a senior executive said.
Maersk, among the world’s largest container shipping lines, has initiated talks with Indian shipyards to build these smaller container vessels, Amdi Krogh, the carrier’s global head of ocean assets partnering, told Business Standard.
The shipping line, which on Friday became the first international player to order containers from an Indian manufacturer — DCM Containers — is also looking to source a larger share of its container demand from India, Krogh said.
He did not specify details of the discussions with shipyards or container manufacturers. The longer-term goal is to build bigger vessels in India once capacity expands, Krogh said.
In February, French carrier CMA CGM also placed an order for six dual-fuel container vessels in a $350 million deal with Cochin Shipyard.
The push to bring more of the Danish carrier’s maritime business to India follows Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi’s meeting with Robert Maersk Uggla, chairman of the supervisory board of AP Moller-Maersk, in February 2025. During the meeting, the PM encouraged the company to actively support the development of world-class container manufacturing in India, according to a government statement issued after Friday’s container order.
The recent momentum has been backed by a ₹80,000 crore government support package. Of this, ₹70,000 crore has been earmarked for shipbuilding and shipyard development. The remaining ₹10,000 crore, under the Container Manufacturing Promotion Scheme announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Union Budget speech in February, is expected to reduce India’s dependence on imported containers, strengthen supply-chain resilience, and create a globally competitive manufacturing ecosystem.
The scheme also aims to provide capital expenditure support for setting up greenfield container manufacturing facilities and expanding existing brownfield facilities, along with operational expenditure support to bridge the per-container cost gap and improve the competitiveness of domestic manufacturers.
Government officials said the scheme has already begun to show results, even before its formal launch. “The announcement itself has set the ball rolling with the Maersk order. We expect more significant offtake once the scheme is fully rolled out,” an official said.
The carrier is also keen to build larger vessels in India. However, the current lack of technical capability and dry dock infrastructure means only vessels of up to 4,000 TEUs can be built, a senior Maersk executive said. “Given the current momentum, one can assume that it will take India six to eight years to develop an ecosystem capable of building large vessels. There is significant appetite, as shipping lines want alternatives to the current players,” the executive said.
The person added that the recent announcement of a memorandum of understanding involving Tamil Nadu is being seen by Maersk, as well as other global shipping lines, as a major boost to India’s shipbuilding potential.