Hyundai Revisits Coastal Shipping To Limit Demonetisation Impact

With the lack of availability of transport trucks following demonetisation and the increased affordability of coastal shipping of vehicles, leading automakers like Hyundai are now multiplying the shipments of their cars through the sea.

The Korean carmaker is set to ship around 2,500 units of cars, for markets like Gujarat, Maharashtra, NCR and Uttar Pradesh, next week from the Ennore Port in Tamil Nadu. The cargos will land on the Kandla Port in Gujarat, from where the vehicles will be taken to their respective destinations via trucks.

Alongside Hyundai, other manufacturers based out of southern India, like Ford and Renault-Nissan, will also be transporting a handful of their cars in ships. Tata Motors and Honda are also among the manufacturers that carry out major shipments through the sea, while certain two-wheeler companies are also planning to make the most of this convenience. 

Going forward, Hyundai plans to further increase its transport volumes through coastal shipping to around 5,000-6,000 units a month from the 2,000-2,500 at the moment, according to Business Standard.

This will be Hyundai’s fourth instance of moving cars through coastal shipping after it opened the doors for this mode of transport in February earlier this year. The first shipment of 800 cars was followed by another (622 units) in September and yet another one (1,428 units) in October. 

This comes in as a welcome decision for the Ministry of Shipping that had announced discounts of 80 per cent for two years on vessel related and coast related charges for coastal transportation of vehicles through roll-on roll-off (RoRo) ships. Looks like a win-win situation for all the parties involved!