TEHRAN - Loading and unloading of goods in the ports of Gilan province, in the north of Iran, rose four percent during the previous Iranian calendar year 1400 (ended on March 20), as compared to the preceding year, a provincial official announced.

Hamid-Reza Abaei, the director-general of the province’s Ports and Maritime Department, said that over 1.676 million tons of commodities were loaded and unloaded in Anzali and Astara ports in the past year.

Of the mentioned figure, 1.66 million tons was related to the non-oil and about 17,000 tons was related to the oil products, the official said.

He also announced a 51-percent growth in the export of non-oil products from the ports of Gilan in the previous year.

Based on the data released by Transport and Urban Development Ministry, loading and unloading of goods in the ports of Iran rose 17 percent during the past year.

The ministry’s data show that loading and unloading of goods in the country’s ports reached 152.91 million tons in the previous Iranian calendar year, while the figure stood at 130.69 million tons in the preceding year.

During the said year, loading and unloading operations in the container sector reached 2.1 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) with a weight of 24.57 million tons, which was 13.5 percent more than the 1.85 million TEUs in the Iranian calendar year 1399, the report said.

The loading and unloading of goods during the previous year also grew by 12.8 percent in the dry bulk sector, while in the liquid bulk sector the figure increased by 12.6 percent, in the general cargo sector rose by 13.1 percent, and in the petroleum sector grew by 22.5 percent.

While Iran is combating the U.S. unilateral sanctions on its economy, the country’s ports as the major gates of exports and imports play a significant role in this battle. This role makes all-out support to ports and more development of them serious and vital.

Such necessity has led the government to define projects for more development of the ports and also take some measures to encourage investment making in ports, in addition, to facilitate loading and unloading of goods, especially basic commodities, there.

It is worth mentioning that Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organization (PMO) has defined a high number of projects to develop and improve the country’s ports, as the country aims to double the capacity of its ports in a course of five years.

According to Ports and Maritime Organization, the capacity of the country's ports has increased from 180 million tons in the Iranian calendar year 1392 (ended in March 2014) to 250 million tons in 1399 (ended in March 2021).

MA/MA