TEHRAN (Iran News) – Some 46.18 million tons of commodities have been loaded and unloaded at Iranian ports during the first four months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21– July 22), an official with the Ports and Maritime Organization (PMO) announced.
According to the PMO’s director for ports affairs Ravanbakhsh Behzadian, the mentioned figure has increased by 9.8 percent compared to the previous year’s same period during which 42.07 million tons of goods had been loaded and unloaded, IRNA reported.
loading and unloading operations in the container sector stood at 6.66 million tons, in dry bulk at 13.69 million tons, while for the liquid bulk the figure was 1.47 million tons, for general cargo 6.89 million tons and for petroleum products amounted to 17.46 million tons, Behzadian explained.
He noted that the volume of loading and unloading of liquid bulk cargoes in the said four months increased by 39.8 percent compared to the same period last year, while the figure increased by 25.3 percent, and 22.7 for the general and petroleum cargoes, respectively.
As reported by IRNA, the outbreak of the coronavirus and the imposition of restrictions on the shipping traffic at borders led to a 55 percent decline in loading and unloading operations at the country’s ports in the first 16 days of the current Iranian calendar year, but the situation has improved gradually.
Despite all limitations and barriers created by the pandemic and the U.S. sanctions on the country, Iran’s port activities, which play some major part in the country’s trade, have been improving in recent months.
The latest reports released in terms of the loading and unloading operation in the ports of the country are an indication of such improvements.
Official data indicate that 660,000 tons of commodities have been loaded and unloaded at the eastern ports of Hormozgan province during the first quarter of the current Iranian year (March 21-June 21), 27 percent more than the figure for the first quarter of the previous year.
Imam Khomeini Port, in the southwestern Khuzestan province, also had a good performance, as 73 vessels unloaded 3.622 million tons of basic goods at this port during the first quarter, rising three percent from the amount of basic commodities unloaded at this port in the same three-month period of the previous year.
The rising trend of loading and unloading operation has been also reported about the northern ports of the country.
The mentioned operation rose 28 percent at the ports of Mazandaran province, in the north of Iran, during the first quarter of the present year, as compared to the same period of time in the previous year.
