<p>The concept of Blue Economy is emerging as a new narrative on productive and sustainable engagement with the vast development opportunities that oceanic resources offer. The important sectors of Blue Economy are fisheries, sea-minerals including oil and gas, ports and shipping, marine tourism, marine biotechnology, deep-sea mining, and transport and logistics.</p>
<p>It is believed that by undertaking Blue Economy initiative countries would be able to achieve high economic growth and maintain healthy balance between resource use and its renewability. However, there are few attempts to estimate the gains of Blue Economy. This assumes importance in the light of the fact that the world faces the challenge of restoring a healthy balance between the ambition of high economic growth and the goal of environmental sustainability. With the launch of SDGs, concerns are emerging in favour of sustainable use of natural resources especially in the context of growth-centric development models. In fact the oceans and the ocean related activities are viewed as the greatest source of growth in the post-recession period.</p>
<p>This report presents the synthesis of various conceptual and methodological issues relating to blue economy and the importance of this paradigm to the overall social and economic progress of the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) countries. Since there exist ambiguities over the coverage of blue economy sectors and data availability, empirical estimates of the size of blue economy and related indicators are avoided here.</p>