For decades, India has quietly relied on a product that is so basic to global trade that most people rarely notice it. The steel shipping container powers trade of everything from engineering goods to electronics, yet almost every steel box used by Indian trade comes from China.
India has just taken a symbolic but significant step towards changing that reality with the rollout of its first export-import shipping container manufactured for global deployment. The move marks the beginning of an ambitious effort to enter an industry where China's dominance has remained virtually unchallenged for decades.
