Cargo volumes at the ports are expected to grow by 7-8
per cent in the current fiscal and volumes in FY2025 to grow by 6-8 per cent.
This will be driven by healthy growth in the container and coal segments;
slowdown in global economic growth and/or geo-political tensions impacting
trade volumes are the key risks, according to ICRA.
In 10M FY2024, cargo volumes witnessed a 7.6 per cent
growth after growing 8.3 per cent in FY2023. Coal and container volumes have
grown at a healthy pace of 8.4 per cent and 10.5 per cent respectively,
although container volumes have witnessed slowdown amid the Red Sea crisis in
the last couple of months. Petroleum
product volumes witnessed modest growth.
Going forward in FY2025, volume growth of 6-8 per cent
is expected, supported by continued healthy coal imports, while container
segment growth is expected to moderate amid the Red Sea crisis resulting in
elevated freight rates.
Further, new projects are also being awarded in line
with growth envisioned in Maritime Vision 2030. A large capex has been planned
for the next decade to augment port capacity and infrastructure. Project
execution is expected to pick up pace, going forward. Aggressive capacity additions may lead to supply-demand mismatches in
a few clusters leading to increased competition and pricing pressure for ports
in those clusters. The sector witnessed consolidation in the last few years
with acquisition of smaller or standalone players by larger groups and this
consolidation trend in the sector is expected to continue.