The Indian Government’s director general of shipping Deepak Shetty has welcomed a new partnership between one of India’s leading maritime marketing companies Marex Media and Merseyside PR agency Polaris Media.
The partnership was formally launched at ‘The Club’ in Mumbai to an audience of journalists and senior maritime executives including representatives from Anglo Eastern, Wallem, Great Eastern Shipping, Northern Marine, Pentagon Marine Services, MMS Maritime India and India’s Maritime Association of Shipowners, Ship Managers and Agents (MASSA).
The new alliance will offer UK and Indian maritime firms a range of support for entry to the Indian and UK maritime markets. These include events and publicity in Marex’s two maritime magazines The Marex Bulletin and Maritime Matrix and the wider Indian media.
Polaris director Ben Pinnington gave a presentation on Polaris’ services as well as the Liverpool City Region and the UK maritime industry.
“Polaris is very excited by this new venture and we were proud to tell the audience about Liverpool’s great maritime heritage and plans for the future,” he said. “We share Marex approach to marketing innovation and this new partnership aims to give our clients and potential customers added value. Maritime is growing fast in India and is a prime growth market offering plenty of opportunity for UK firms. The close and historic relationship between India and Britain, and Mumbai and Liverpool, makes bi-lateral trade easier with so much shared experience and culture. We will also be working with Marex offering Indian companies market support in the UK and international maritime press and we are already working with a number of Indian maritime businesses.”
Deepak Shetty said: “I very much encourage any innovation which raises awareness of India’s reliance on the sea. We like Britain are still a maritime nation. We have 7500km of coastline and nearly 95% of India’s trade is carried by sea. Marex and Polaris are experts in the maritime field and this initiative will help grow and develop relations between maritime businesses in India and the UK. India has major plans for its maritime industry, the Maritime Agenda, 2010 – 2020 will see up to $36billion of investments into the ports industry. This will focus on ensuring that India becomes a manufacturing outsourcing hub with a capacity of over 3 billion tonnes by 2020. All this will also be showcased at the forthcoming Maritime India Summit in April in Mumbai.”
Marex Media managing director Capt. Kamal Chadha said: “Marex has worked hard for many years building awareness of our publishing and marketing offering for the Indian maritime industry. This new partnership with Polaris will enable us to strengthen our reach into Britain and Europe. For our clients the partnership with Polaris can help them raise awareness outside India. We also look forward to supporting Polaris’ clients enter the Indian maritime market through publicity, events and on the ground research and intelligence. It is worth emphasizing that Moody’s recently predicted GDP growth of around 7.5% for India in 2016 and 2017.”
Polaris Merseyside clients include Cammell Laird, SeaKing and James Troop while overseas the company works with the Gulf’s biggest shipyard Oman Drydock and Oman Shipping.