India, the Bahamas to Cooperate in Cruise Shipping

In a bid to explore the possibilities of cooperation in the area of cruise shipping, India and the Bahamas have decided to enter into a memorandum of understanding in this regard.

The decision was taken at a meeting between Union Shipping, Road Transport and Highways Minister T.R. Baalu and the visiting Foreign Affairs and Public Service Minster of the Bahamas, Frederick Mitchell, here yesterday.

During the meeting, the two countries also discussed the possibility of having a MoU for engagement of more Indian sea-farers on the Bahamas Flagships. Other areas of cooperation in the shipping and port sector also came up for discussion.

The meeting was also attended by the Secretary (Shipping), A.K. Mohapatra, Secretary (Road Transport and Highways) L.K. Joshi, besides other senior officials of the Ministry.

The proposed memo with Bahamas is expected to give a nudge to Government´s plan of formulating a cruise shipping policy to make the country an attractive cruise tourism destination with state-of-the-art infrastructure and other facilities at selected ports of the country.

Bahamas is a favored cruise shipping destination in the world and its experience and expertise in this area could be used as valuable signpost in the development of the Indian cruise shipping industry.

Cruise shipping today is one of the largest growing sectors globally with an annual turnover of more than 500 billion dollars. Around 9.6 million passengers were estimated to have been cruising around the globe last year.