India launches manufacturing schemes for containers and rare-earth magnets

India is launching major industrial initiatives to bolster domestic manufacturing and reduce reliance on imports. The government has announced the ₹10,000-crore Container Manufacturing Assistance Scheme (CMAS) over five years. This program aims to build a domestic shipping container industry with a target capacity of 1 million Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) annually over the next decade. The initiative is expected to create approximately 3,000 direct and 50,000 indirect jobs.

Simultaneously, India is attempting to establish a domestic rare-earth magnet manufacturing ecosystem through a ₹7,280-crore incentive scheme. This move seeks to address a significant dependency on China, which currently supplies 85 to 90 percent of India's rare-earth magnets. However, the magnet initiative faces challenges, including difficulties in securing heavy rare earth elements like dysprosium and terbium, as well as Chinese export controls on specialized processing machinery and materials.