East Coast Economic Corridor

This article is about the economic corridor in India. For the economic corridor in Malaysia, see East Coast Economic Region.
Map showing the plans for the East Coast Economic Corridor

The East Coast Economic Corridor (ECEC) is India’s first coastal economic corridor, covering 2500 km of India's coastline, to be developed with the help of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The ADB is to invest $500 million in infrastructural development of the project.[1] Since late 2013, ADB has been supporting studies on transport corridors in India. Phase 1 of the ECEC is Visakhapatnam-Chennai Industrial Corridor (VCIC) which had been approved by the ADB board in October 2016. The ECEC running along the entire east coast of India from Kolkata to Kanyakumari, is a multimodal, regional maritime corridor that can play a vital role in unifying the large domestic market, as well as integrating the Indian economy with the dynamic global value chains of Southeast and East Asia.[2] It would play a crucial role in the Government of India’s (GoI) Make in India campaign and also supports the port-led industrialization strategy under the Sagar Mala initiative and the Act East Policy by linking domestic companies with the vibrant global production networks of East and Southeast Asia.[3]

ECEC stretches about 2,500 kilometers along India's eastern coast—from Kolkata in the north to Kanyakumari in the south—traversing the four states of West Bengal, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

ECEC encompasses several centers of economic activity, covering not only the resource-rich but also the poorest regions. Linking the lagging regions with the growing and well-established industrial clusters will help create job opportunities for the poor. To stimulate economic activities in other emerging clusters and distribute growth within the region, efficient multi-modal transport is necessary. The presence of a strong information and communication technology (ICT) industry in Kolkata, Visakhapatnam, Hyderabad, and Chennai can also lend support to ECEC’s communications network; provide a platform for skills development in other related service sectors; and facilitate implementation of e-governance systems for maintenance, monitoring, and evaluation of corridor development activities.

It connects to Raipur–Visakhapatnam Economic Corridor at Visakhapatnam.

  1. ^ Dash, Jayajit (18 November 2016). "East coast economic corridor to cover Odisha". Business Standard India.
  2. ^ "Economic Corridor Development (ECD) now at the forefront in promoting Sustained Growth in the SASEC Sub-region; India and Asian Development Bank (ADB) partnering on the economic corridor approach yields useful lessons on ECD, through their joint work on the East Coast Economic Corridor (ECEC)".
  3. ^ "National Manufacturing Policy". Ministry of Commerce & Industry. 25 October 2011.