Mumbai: APL's president for South Asia has criticised India's inadequate infrastructure and high port and inland transport costs as 'hurting its development as an exporter to the rest of the world'. Speaking at the Southern Asia Ports, Logistics and Shipping conference in Mumbai, Kenneth Glenn pointed out that foreign companies wishing to outsource manufacturing operations to Asia needed to be near ports with world-class efficiency. By late 2008 some 25% of world container capacity will be carried on ships of at least 6,000teu, he added, but as yet India has no port that can handle this class of ship. Furthermore only one Indian port, Mumbai's Jawal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT), was in the world's top 100 container ports (at number 36) last year, he said, suggesting Indian investment in ports is 'too fragmented'. And the proposed Shipping Trade Practices Bill in India represented 'a bureaucratic approach to the regulation of pricing,' he warned, that could increase supply chain costs and further 'disadvantage India's global competitiveness'. [15/09/06]
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