According to World Bank’s Doing Business Report 2019, India ranked 163 among 189 countries in honouring business contracts. India takes as much as 1,445 days and 31% of the claim value for dispute resolution, much higher compared to China and its OECD and South Asian counterparts. This reiterates the need for reforms not only in accelerating the dispute resolution, but also having a strong in-country mechanism for out of court dispute resolution, viz. Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanisms.

India has evolved into a major player in the international trade. Indian maritime industry is amongst the main catalysts in the development process of trade and commerce in India. With the "centre of gravity” of world trade slowly shifting to Asia, India is poised to handle large proportion of world trade.

As our nation continues to witness rapid expansion of maritime activities and inches closer to become a significant global maritime hub with the implementation of Gujarat Maritime Cluster, a strong growing and recurring demand is being generated for wide array of maritime services by the maritime and shipping trade. Among such services, a specialised facility for maritime alternate dispute resolution services is identified as one of the key requirements by the members in port and shipping fraternity.

Despite this huge demand, India presently does not have an arbitration or mediation centre focused exclusively on the maritime and shipping sector. The regional maritime community has long preferred referring their disputes to the arbitration centres based in London, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc.

Gujarat, at the forefront in terms of India’s maritime growth story, has the highest number of operational and commercial ports which handle close to 40% of India’s cargo throughput. It is hence fitting that Gujarat takes a lead in filling the void in alternate dispute resolution mechanism in the maritime and shipping industry. There is a strong merit in setting up a specialist arbitral institution centre focused on maritime and shipping in the GIFT City by imbibing the best practices from the premier maritime arbitral institutions.

To that end, the GIMAC has been formed as an exclusive specialist ADR centre, providing arbitration and other dispute resolution services pertaining to disputes related to maritime and shipping sector.