Small cargo services from Nagapattinam to Kankesanthurai to begin by January 20

NAGAPATTINAM : In a bid to revitalise trade in Nagapattinam and the neighbouring delta districts, the Nagapattinam district administration is set to launch a small cargo service between Nagapattinam and Kankesanthurai in Sri Lanka by the last week of January. The service will involve small cargo vessels with a carrying capacity of 150–200 tonnes, transporting groceries, garments, and agricultural products.

District Collector P. Akash said: “Initially, we are planning for one trip per week. By January 20, we expect the service to be operational. Based on demand and supply, we will explore the possibility of increasing the frequency.”

Mr. Akash high­lighted the his­toric sig­ni­fic­ance of Nagapat­ti­nam Port in trade.

“Exports from Nagapat­ti­nam have a rich his­tory, dat­ing back to the Chola period. Even 100 years ago, it was an act­ive port. The Tamil Nadu Mari­time Board has exten­ded its sup­port to this ini­ti­at­ive, which aims at reju­ven­at­ing the port’s trade poten­tial,” he said.

Mr. Akash told The Hindu that gar­ment indus­tries in Tirup­pur and MSMEs from nearby dis­tricts, includ­ing Tiru­chi and Tiruvarur, had shown interest in util­ising the ser­vice.

“Kankes­an­thurai is just 3.5 hours from here, mak­ing it an attract­ive route for indus­tries. In a recent meet­ing with indus­tri­al­ists, we saw pos­it­ive interest from 15 to 20 com­pan­ies. They are excited to start this ser­vice,” he said.

Good demand

Rice, gar­ments, gro­cer­ies, and other goods are in high demand in Sri Lanka’s north­ern and east­ern provinces. While many export­ers from the State rely on ports in Chen­nai and Thoothukudi, exist­ing cus­toms clear­ance facil­it­ies and prox­im­ity to Sri Lanka provide a unique advant­age to Nagapat­ti­nam.

“We already have an entre­pren­eur with a ves­sel, and sev­eral com­pan­ies are ready to send their goods. By lever­aging Nagapat­ti­nam’s exist­ing infra­struc­ture, we can expand trade oppor­tun­it­ies in the delta dis­tricts,” Mr. Akash added.

To be clear, India was not the only major mar­ket to be hit in the past week, par­tic­u­larly after the U.S. Fed­eral Reserve announced a 0.25% cut in interest rates but accom­pan­ied it with a rather hawk­ish guid­ance on the out­look for fur­ther rate reduc­tions in 2025.

As Shrik­ant Chouhan, head of equity research at Kotak Secur­it­ies poin­ted out, global equity mar­kets wit­nessed vari­ous degrees of sell­off through the week with Brazil’s mar­kets down 10%, Japan down 5% and even the S&P­500 index in The auto­mobile PLI scheme was designed to boost local man­u­fac­tur­ing in the auto sec­tor.