00:00Hi, Pradeep here. So you got a tremendous start having closing the seas, having visiting the major ports.
00:07How are you evaluating this humble beginning of Vidinjam?
00:10Two years back or 10 years back, it was still in concept paper.
00:14Two years back, the port did not exist.
00:17And we were still not sure if the first ship will birth and when will it even birth, right?
00:24And when we went live 3rd December 2024 compared to where we are today, the experience of building this really
00:32humbled us for sure.
00:35It's a lot of learning for everybody, but what we saw post that is a phenomenal growth.
00:41We are small, but I think we already have a lot of national records under our belt already, right?
00:49Right from the largest ships to the deepest ship to more than 100% of our capacity filling and all
00:58that stuff, which is one side of it, right?
01:03But what we kind of came across to reach where we are, right from, you know, we need to develop
01:10this without impacting the society around us negatively.
01:15First automated port, and nobody had an experience in India or even in the South Asian region to have a
01:23person to run this port.
01:24It's a tremendous challenge that all of us went through.
01:29But if I can quote maybe an invoke God, you know, God's grace, government support, people's help, media, fellow businessmen,
01:37you know, on the chambers and everybody, right?
01:39You kept us motivated and showing some or the other positive news all the time.
01:45You know, every small movements were celebrated, you know, which pushed, you know, all of us towards reaching the goal
01:53of at least completing the phase one on time.
01:57Now we started phase two, so officially launched, and initially we had given a proposal of about, I mean, I'm
02:05just rounding off a figure of 8,000 odd crores as per the concession agreement, but we have announced we
02:11will double the investment to about 16,000 crores.
02:15So that shows the potential this port has, but if I take two more minutes, then I just wanted to
02:23tell you why a port is very, very, very different from anything else.
02:29You take any top cities, traditional big cities in the world, Singapore, Hong Kong, London, New York, they were all
02:39trade centers having port.
02:42Then it became financial centers and so on and so forth.
02:46If you have an IT or technology coming into like a Bangalore kind of a place or something like that,
02:52as an example, it gives job opportunities to a specific skill sets and qualification.
02:59Financial services, if it is a hub, it actually brings specific skill sets and qualifications that get a job.
03:08But when a port gets set up, the ecosystem that brings in, right, you have banks, you have manufacturing organizations,
03:16if cruise ship comes, you know, you have hospitality, food and beverage.
03:20So right from your ITI to somebody who is semi-skilled, low-skilled, no-skilled to somebody who is good
03:31in automation, it is the only industry that kind of cuts across the entire gamut of everybody in the society.
03:38I think we should not miss that point that the ecosystem comes automatically that when a port arrives and it
03:48is also important that we facilitate for faster setting up of that, you know, ecosystem for the larger benefit of
03:56the state.
03:56So, you have mentioned about some of the challenges.
03:59What about the competition?
04:01It's just from the international boundaries or from India itself and do Virinjam have the ability to persist beyond all
04:08those outs?
04:09See, competition, I will take it into two parts.
04:12My first part, I will say there is no competition.
04:14The reason is India's export-import is still significantly low and our infrastructure is still significantly low compared to larger
04:25export-import or trans-shipment companies, countries, sorry.
04:30India did about 22-23 million TEU export-import last year.
04:34Shanghai port did 53 or 54, one port in China, more than double.
04:39So, let's take the trans-shipment example.
04:43Singapore, the size of Bangalore, did 44 million, which is double the size of what we as a country did.
04:51So, we have to go a long way from the perspective of building more infrastructure, developing these manufacturing, export-import,
04:59and so on and so forth, that ecosystem.
05:01So, from that perspective, I will say that any new port will have business and you will always have a
05:07demand.
05:07That's one portion of my very optimistic way of telling that India needs more infrastructure.
05:14The second side, if you look at it, is what is important for the success of the port is the
05:20associated infrastructure that gets developed around.
05:24So, if you look at today, Colombo just launched a new terminal 10 days back.
05:32Singapore is coming out with a new port itself, you know, which is likely to fully automated 70 billion US
05:37dollars that they are spending.
05:38Dubai is expanding, you name it.
05:40And including India, all the major ports are going through a massive expansion.
05:44Minor ports are going through a massive expansion.
05:46In even Tutukorin, you have the inner harbor is getting expanded.
05:51They are looking at an outer so that the depth advantage that we have, they also have, right?
05:56So, it is important that from a short to medium-term perspective, we go faster before those infrastructures are getting
06:03developed.
06:04Because once the ecosystem gets developed, in a similar case of Chennai or Pune from automobile perspective, they are kind
06:11of unthreatened at this point of a time is because that the entire, not only manufacturing, the entire supply chain
06:17is within that region.
06:18You know, your spare parts and other things is there within the region, right?
06:22So, it is third city is not going to happen.
06:24So, that infrastructure is something which we need to focus on.
06:28I think Sir also talked about it quite a bit.
06:30I think the government is taking the right steps to do that.
06:33I think that is something which is very critical.
06:35I think after the completion of the second phase, Adhanis will be the biggest investor in Kerala, right?
06:40Including the port and airport.
06:43Correct.
06:43So, how is that?
06:44I would still say that even after that, we will be small in India, right?
06:49So, you know, today we are about a million, million and a half.
06:52We have committed that we will increase it to 5.7.
06:55But Mundara and Mumbai today are 10 million, 10 million.
06:58So, another three, four years, they are also going to ramp up.
07:01So, we need to still think bigger.
07:04This is my viewpoint.
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