TEHRAN- Some 1.5 million tons of basic goods have been imported to Iran via Shahid Rajaee Port in south of the country during the first eight months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-November 23), director general of Hormozgan Province, where the port lies, announced on Wednesday.

Allah-Morad Afifipour said container operation has exceeded one million tons in the port and there is no waiting line for unloading of commodities, ISNA reported.

Located in Iran’s southern province of Hormozgan, Shahid Rajaee is the country’s largest and best-equipped container port.

Enjoying the most modern container terminals and port equipment, the Shahid Rajaee accounts for 85 percent of the total loading and unloading at the Iranian ports.

Given its significant role in the country’s import and export of products as well as transit and transshipment via Iran, development of Shahid Rajaee Port is among the most important development projects in the country.

And to expedite its development, benefitting from the potential and capabilities of private sector is seriously pursued.

Designing, building, transporting, installing and launching 15 gantry cranes which increased the number of these cranes to 60 at Shahid Rajaee Port could be mentioned as some of the major projects implemented by the private sector to develop this port.

In late September, private sector signed a 50-trillion-rial (nearly $1.2 billion) contract for developing the port.

“Based on the signed investment agreement, the largest mechanized mineral terminal will be built at Shahid Rajaee Port, with the private sector’s funding,” Afifipour said in the signing ceremony.

He said, “With the construction of this terminal, all the requirements of the country’s steel companies for importing feed stock through ports could be supplied.”

“Facilitating the exports of minerals is also another feature of this terminal and it is expected that the mineral export operations in this port would increase significantly,” he added.

Shahid Rajaee Port’s capacity is planned to rise 2.1 million TEUs to reach 8 million TEUs through implementing the first stage of the third phase of its development plan by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 19, 2020), Ports and Maritime Organization (PMO)’s director of engineering and infrastructure development said in mid-August.

Mohammadreza Allahyar said: “We have implementation of the third phase on agenda and it has already some good progress.”

Once the third phase is fully implemented, the vessels with the capacity of 18,400 TEU can berth at the port, he added.

MA/MA