Chung Kisun, Chairman of South Korea’s largest shipbuilding group HD Hyundai, has met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The two sides held discussions on expanding mutually beneficial cooperation in the shipbuilding sector.
HD Hyundai said Chairman Chung Kisun and HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering CEO Kim Hyungkwan attended the high-level roundtable on Wednesday, January 28, hosted by Prime Minister Modi at the Prime Minister’s official residence in New Delhi.
The high-level roundtable was held as part of India Energy Week 2026, bringing together about 30 participants, including Prime Minister Modi, ministers from relevant Indian government bodies, heads of state-owned enterprises, and chief executives of global companies, to discuss avenues for cooperation.
During the meeting, Chairman Chung expressed appreciation for the Prime Minister’s strong commitment to fostering the shipbuilding industry and asked for continued interest and support for HD Hyundai’s ongoing collaborative initiatives with India.
“HD Hyundai continues to maintain close collaborative relationships with India across a wide range of areas,” Chairman Chung said. “India is a key pillar of our strategy to diversify overseas production bases, and I am confident it will serve as a new engine of growth for HD Hyundai.”
To take part in the Indian government’s Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision 2047 initiative, HD Hyundai signed a memorandum of understanding in July last year with Cochin Shipyard, India’s largest state-owned shipbuilder, agreeing to cooperate across multiple areas, including design and procurement support, productivity improvements, and workforce capability development.
More recently, HD Hyundai expanded its collaboration with Cochin Shipyard to include naval vessels. It has also accelerated its entry into the Indian market by signing an exclusive MOU with the government of Tamil Nadu to jointly build a shipyard and advance crane business cooperation with state-owned BEML.
India has also shown strong interest in strengthening cooperation with HD Hyundai. In November last year and again in January this year, Hardeep Singh Puri, India’s Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, and T. R. B. Rajaa, Tamil Nadu’s Minister for Industries, respectively, visited South Korea to tour HD Hyundai’s Global R&D Center and HD Hyundai Heavy Industries’ Ulsan shipyard and discuss ways to deepen cooperation with the group.
India currently ranks between 20th and 22nd in the global shipbuilding industry, holding only about 0.06% of the worldwide new shipbuilding market share. Although this market share is negligible in the global new shipbuilding market, India has set ambitious shipbuilding goals: aiming to enter the top ten global shipbuilders by 2030 and break into the top five by 2047.
To achieve its objectives, India is actively developing and supporting its shipbuilding industry. It has approved massive subsidies worth $5.4 billion for the nation’s shipbuilding sector, including $3 billion in direct shipbuilding subsidies and $2.4 billion in shipyard infrastructure investments.
For HD Hyundai, its shipbuilding division is accelerating the expansion of overseas shipbuilding bases to capture a larger share of the previously “abandoned” low-value-added commercial vessel market. Leveraging India’s national support programs and strategic geographic location, the country has become a key strategic foothold in HD Hyundai’s overseas market expansion.