The Finance Ministry’s decision to grant infrastructure status to large Indian-owned and flagged ships is set to unlock new financing channels for the maritime industry, allowing fleet owners to raise funds through Infrastructure Investment Trusts (InvITs) and recycle capital for new vessel acquisitions, experts said.
According to a notification issued by the Finance Ministry on September 19, Indian-owned and flagged commercial vessels with a gross tonnage (GT) of 10,000 and above, or Indian-built, owned, and flagged ships of 1,500 GT or more, will now be treated as infrastructure assets.
“This is a great opportunity to bring ships under the InvIT framework and monetise vessels owned by various companies to fund the next round of shipbuilding and ownership,” said K Rajaraman, Chairman, International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA). “The InvIT structure offers a sustainable avenue to raise finances for shipbuilding, which is capital-intensive by nature.”
Speaking at the India Maritime Week 2025 held in Mumbai between October 27–31, Rajaraman noted that the biggest challenge for the sector lies in raising long-term capital amid market volatility and uncertain recovery expectations.
India’s shipbuilding industry, he added, is poised for a “quantum leap” in capacity and capability to meet ambitious targets of building 1,000 large ships, which cannot be achieved through government funding alone. Innovative financing models — including InvITs and fractional asset ownership — are crucial to bridge this funding gap.
Pooling shipping receivables or lease rentals into tradeable financial instruments could also help open the maritime sector to a broader spectrum of investors — from retail and institutional players to pension and insurance funds — with varying risk–return preferences.
Until now, ships were excluded from the harmonised list of infrastructure sectors, making InvITs inapplicable to them. The new status changes that.
“With infrastructure status, if someone invests heavily in constructing or acquiring a ship, they can push that asset into an InvIT and receive units in return,” explained Debashis Bandyopadhyay, Chief General Manager at SEBI, the capital market regulator. “That InvIT can then raise funds from the public — say 80% of the vessel’s cost — allowing owners to recycle their capital quickly and build more ships. It’s similar to how mutual funds work for capital markets.”
He added that the existing InvIT regulations are robust and can seamlessly be extended to the shipping sector, providing a tested framework for investors and regulators alike.
A Dubai-based shipbroker, whose firm is setting up operations at GIFT City, said the move could democratise ship ownership. “Just like holding shares in companies, investors can now own fractional units of special purpose vehicles that hold ships as single assets,” he said. “Depending on the return potential — say 15–20 per cent — investors can choose which ship to invest in based on their risk appetite.”
Industry observers believe the policy change could catalyse India’s ambitions to become a global ship-owning and shipbuilding hub, aligning with the government’s broader Maritime India Vision 2030.
