Vizhinjam port sees record cargo growth amid global shipping disruptions

Although the Hormuz crisis has come as a blessing in disguise for the newly commissioned the Vizhinjam seaport in Kerala, witnessed by an increase in vessel calls and record cargo handling volumes in its opening financial year, the port could not fully tap into the demand and growing potential of the global maritime industry. Delays in augmenting the port’s infrastructure forced the authorities to turn away requests from shipping lines during the peak of the Hormuz crisis, which was fuelled by the West Asian war.

As the financial year drew to a close, the Vizhinjam International Transhipment Deepwater Multipurpose Seaport, billed as India’s first semi-automated and most technologically sophisticated port developed by Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd (APSEZ) in partnership with the Kerala government, set a new benchmark in its inaugural financial year by handling 12.96 lakh twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of cargo, surpassing the projected annual capacity of one million TEUs.