The Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways on 13 May 2026 issued a detailed brief on the tripartite memorandum of understanding signed for setting up India's first mega greenfield shipyard at Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu under the Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision 2047. The MoU was originally exchanged on 20 April 2026 in the presence of Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal during the state visit of the President of the Republic of Korea, Lee Jae Myung, to India, and brings together HD Korea Shipbuilding and Offshore Engineering, the National Shipbuilding and Heavy Industries Park Tamil Nadu Limited (NSHIP-TN), and the Sagarmala Finance Corporation Limited. The proposed shipyard will have an annual capacity of 2.5 million gross tonnage and is expected to generate around 15,000 direct jobs once operations stabilise, apart from very large indirect employment in ancillary industries, port logistics and skilled MSME ecosystems in southern Tamil Nadu. The facility will serve as the anchor unit of the Thoothukudi Shipbuilding Cluster being developed by NSHIP-TN, with the techno-economic feasibility report already complete and the detailed project report under preparation. The project is aligned with the Maritime India Vision 2030 and the Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision 2047 which target raising India's share in global shipbuilding from less than 1 per cent today to a top five position by 2047. Sagarmala Finance Corporation, a non-banking finance company set up under the Sagarmala programme, will provide debt and structured finance to the cluster.