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China’s BRI now faces a credible Indian challenger
(m.timesofindia.com)
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this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2023
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I'm not going factorio here, I'm just trying to get information.
Thanks for the numbers, I had to keep looking up costs and distances and everything but that makes sense to me, the exorbitant multiple loading times.
I thought you were comparing India's potential to specifically China, but you're focusing on the Indian cost of multiple port entries versus just going through the Suez canal that already works fine.
So why would India try to build their own EC when the suez canal is right there? It's touted as cost effective in the articles that are written about it, do you think India is just blowing smoke in order to get investment for it, even though they know it won't be cost effective?
Are they somehow getting different calculations than you are, knowingly or otherwise?
Or do we circle back to your original comment? And it's probably going to just be used for fuel and largely domestic trade between the Middle East and India rather than a more transcontinental purpose?
I'm pretty sure it's the latter: the corridor makes a lot of sense, but not for the reasons people are touting. It's not really connecting India to Europe so much as it is connecting India to the Middle East and Europe to the Middle East. It's getting past some of the key challenges of moving goods to and within the Arabian Peninsula, but connecting India to Europe through it would be silly given that the Suez already exists.
AFAIK it's mostly been the US/EU that's been pushing the narrative that the corridor will connect India to Europe... obviously, given geopolitical tensions with China. Meanwhile, global shopping organizations and shipping analysts treat it as niche product for Europe-India trade.
I wouldn't say it's blowing air so much as it is a method of getting Western funding - you say the words "compete with China" and suddenly the US and EU are willing to throw billions of dollars at you.
Edit: It might be beneficial specifically for perishables because I'm sure you could do some smart container placement and logistical management (using smaller container ships, unloading perishables first), but that's a rather niche market because the two ocean freight legs aren't exactly short... so the items have to be perishable, but not too perishable, and not valuable enough for air freight.
Yeah, when I said blowing smoke I should have said creating a buzz so that they could get investing.
It'll just be a good way to get India improving trade in general and they can figure out what to do with the corridor how they want to do it after they get it funded and built.
I was also wondering about perishable goods while we were talking about the shipping route itself, wondering if transporting perishables would make a difference in the utility of the corridor, but can't see that it would given the amount of countries that would make sense to transport perishables to given the time it would take to transport them.
It'll definitely be interesting to see if they actually get the corridor functioning. Good luck, India.