Rodolphe Saade-led CMA CGM, the world's third-biggest container carrier, will sign a firm contract with state-owned Cochin Shipyard Ltd on February 18, 2026, for constructing six container ships in a deal worth about $300 million, catapulting India into the big league of shipbuilding nations.

Saade, chairman and chief executive officer of France-based CMA CGM, will himself be present at the shipbuilding order signing ceremony in Delhi on Wednesday along with representatives from the Office of Emmanuel Macron, President of France, demonstrating the significance of the order to both the nations, multiple sources said.

The signing ceremony will be held in the presence of Sarbananda Sonowal, Union Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways and Jose V J, chairman and managing director of Cochin Shipyard.

Each box ship will have a capacity to carry 1,700 20-foot equivalent units, or TEUs - a common measure of capacity in the container business - and will be powered by liquefied natural gas, a fuel of which CMA CGM is a big votary in the path to decarbonisation of the shipping industry.

The firm order follows a Letter of Intent signed between CMA CGM and Cochin Shipyard in October last year.

Since then, CMA CGM and Cochin Shipyard have been engaged in fine-tuning the order details while awaiting guidelines on the Shipbuilding Financial Assistance (SBFA) scheme, which was issued by the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways in late December.

According to the SBFA scheme, Cochin Shipyard will get an extra 15-25 per cent as financial assistance from the government for building each box ship because it will come under the specialised vessel category, entitling the yard to get state aid of 15 per cent on the first ?100 crore and 25 per cent on the balance value.

This is the first container ship order ever to be placed by a global mainline ship operator in India, a holy grail for local shipbuilders seeking to make a mark on the global stage on the back of a ?69,725 crore package approved by the Cabinet in September last year.

The container ship order puts India - currently ranked 16th in the world with less than one per cent of the market share - in a different league as it aims to break into the top 10 by 2030 and the top five by 2047, the 100th year since the nation gained independence.

For Mumbai-listed Cochin Shipyard - which has built India's first locally made aircraft carrier, the largest dredger, naval ships and a slew of niche vessels for European clients - the order is a defining moment.

Cochin Shipyard's recent tie-up with South Korea's HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering (KSOE), one of the world's top shipbuilders, to a "large extent gave the confidence to CMA CGM", to firm up its mind on the order after months of talks.

"In the last few years, we have been ordering essentially in China and South Korea, especially large container vessels. What we would like is an alternative for smaller ships that we could now build in India. So, the objective is to be in a position to rely on other shipbuilding countries, and India has proven to be one. It is only the beginning of a long success, but at least India is now a country where you can build small LNG-propelled ships, and this is what we wanted," Saade told ET Infra in an exclusive interview on 15 October 2025, after the carrier signed an Lol with Cochin Shipyard for the box ships.

The container ship order follows CMA CGM's move to reflag four container ships under the Indian flag in the last few months, honouring a commitment given by Chairman Saade to Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he visited the French container line's headquarters at Marseille, France, on February 12 this year.

It was one of the rare visits by an Indian Prime Minister to the headquarters of a global shipping company, underlining the importance that the government attached to the industry, considered a backbone for trade and commerce. The six box ships ordered at Cochin Shipyard "will also be flagged in India", Saade revealed.

The French Group has a presence in India's shipping and logistics space, but Saade said that the investment that his company is about to make for building ships is of a "different magnitude".

It all started in February last year when Prime Minister Narendra Modi, together with President Macron, visited its headquarters in Marseille.

"We had a very interesting interaction with PM Modi, and he was basically challenging me to invest in India and said, 'We would help you out'. And, after a few months, thanks to good teamwork between the government, the shipyard and ourselves, we have been able to confirm an order for six LNG-propelled container ships of 1,700 TEU capacity each," Saade said, noting that he was elated with the speed at which the order was finalised.

"Usually, to develop such a project, it may take years, but this time, it took only a few months. So, I am very thrilled and enthusiastic about this move because we are now in a position to start an ambitious programme of building ships in India," he stated.

The CMA CGM boss said that he was "impressed" with India's strategy to promote its shipbuilding industry.

"We are seeing that all levels of the government are working towards this new strategy that PM Modi has decided to launch. And, if I look at other countries where they are also thinking about shipbuilding, we see that in India things are moving fast, and it is not only words but words and action," he said.

"We are hedging very much on the Indian shipping industry, and we believe that by being amongst the very first to launch such an ambitious programme of building ships in India, of flagging them in India and of having Indian crew, it is something that is really strategic for us," Saade said, adding that his company will hire 500 more Indian seafarers in 2026 on top of the 1,000 it planned to hire this year as committed to PM Modi- most of whom are already on board.

The "value add" that the CMA CGM order brings to Cochin Shipyard, in particular, and to other Indian yards, in general, would be just what the industry was hoping for.

"With this order, Cochin Shipyard gets into the global supply chain of shipbuilding. It is not only about demand. With CMA CGM coming in today, whether Maersk or Mediterranean Shipping Company will come in tomorrow is not the point. The point is, without these companies showing interest, if Cochin Shipyard went directly to Hyundai for a tie-up or any engine manufacturer for sourcing engines or parts for container ships, they won't even open the doors because you are new to this category of ships," said a shipbuilding industry executive, emphasising the importance of the order from the French line.

The executive added that the moment CMA CGM comes in, the doors get opened and the credibility is built. Once the credibility is built, then the collaboration increases, and that collaboration is potentially going to make India one of the biggest shipbuilding hubs in the world.

"That is the value add which comes when entities like CMA CGM comes in to order ships in India," said the executive.

Besides, the order from CMA CGM is expected to "incentivise" suppliers of parts and equipment to create an ecosystem within India.

It will also likely help other Indian yards to win more orders from big fleet owners and assist in building scale.

Large orders bring economies of scale. It is a chicken and egg situation. If you don't have scale, you'll never be competitive, and your negotiating power with the vendors who are also supplying the Chinese and South Korean yards will not be there. Scale helps Indian yards to be taken seriously and for fetching better quotes from vendors," the source said.

"The creation of the ecosystem requires somebody to come in and start placing huge orders. CMA CGM has gone an extra mile with Cochin Shipyard. The fleet owner actively participated in the discussions on how to make it work. Somebody had to take on that mantle, and CMA CGM has done that," the source stated.

Source: ET Infra. Com 

#theshippingtribune #latestnews #shippingnews #dailynews #Maritimenews #shippingindustry #news #media #newsupdate #maritime #shippingnewsworldwide