TEHRAN The Iranian ports' loading capacity has, after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, reached 40m tons which shows a 400 percent increase as compared to the pre-revolution era. Minister of Roads and Transportation Mohammad Hojati spaeking at the 3rd International Conference on Coasts, Ports and Marine Structures (ICOPMS) continued to say that one of the main problems facing the Iranian ports and coasts in their maintenance.

The minister went on to say that geographically, Iran is situated in a region which functions as a bridge between other countries. Also speaking at the conference, managing director of the Ports and Shipping Organization Mokhtar Kalantari said that 80 percent of the government's income is made by the use of the sea and some 200,000 people have marine jobs. In the southern sea there are 6,000 launches and 48,000 people are busy working on board these launches, Kalantari said.

He went on to say that more than 90 percent of the country's non-oil exports are carried out via the ports. Some 300 scientific, research and technical papers and articles, in English and Farsi, have been received by the secretariat of the conference from countries such as Japan, France, Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Canada and Hong Kong.