South Korea’s HD Hyundai and POSCO are making a huge commitment to Tamil Nadu for shipbuilding. HD Hyundai is building the anchor shipyard in the Thoothukudi shipbuilding cluster. Now, South Korea’s steel giant POSCO is joining hands to create an entire shipbuilding vendor ecosystem there. HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering (HD KSOE), the holding company of South Korea’s HD Hyundai's shipbuilding and offshore division, plans to set up a US Dollar 4 billion greenfield shipyard  at Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu with a capacity to produce 3.5 to 4 million gross tonnage a year. All the proposed 3-4 shipbuilding clusters, spread across Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra or Odisha, put together will produce about 4-4.5 million gross tonnage. India has announced ambitious plans to become top 10 in ship ownership and shipbuilding by 2030 and in the top five by 2047. 

This requires ship ownership seven times to 100 million gross tonnage and shipbuilding output 40-times by 2037. HD Hyundai signed a memorandum of understanding with the Tamil Nadu government to set up a shipyard.