New Delhi: Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday expressed concerns over shipping rates and opaqueness in shipping bills and hoped that government wouldn’t need to take strict decisions going ahead.
At the National Logistics Excellence Awards event, he said there were certain issues in the logistics sectors, such as the announcement of shipping rates and opaqueness in shipping bills, and urged the industry to work on these areas.
“Still, I am not satisfied with the shipping rates, which are not announced transparently. There are ambiguities and opaqueness in the shipping bills. You need to work on that,” Goyal said.
Certain sections of the industry, including exporters, have raised issues with regard to shipping rates, which impact the cost of products.
“Logistics has several leakages. Several meetings we have held…I was benevolent because of Covid….(I hope) I do not have to take some tough decisions in the meetings later,” the minister cautioned and asked the industry to make top to bottom changes in the sector.
He said that the industry and government will have to work together to reduce the logistics cost, which is estimated at 13-14% of the GDP against 7-8% in the developed nations.
The minister also said that the government is working on schemes to make container manufacturing viable in India. He expressed hope that soon some new ideas would come for making sure that container manufacturing not only meets India’s requirements but also the world’s.
“We are very seriously working to see how we can expand shipbuilding in India…We want to attract shipping lines,” he said.