TEHRAN- The head of Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organization (PMO) announced that 41 development projects worth 65 billion rials (about $130 million) will be inaugurated in the commercial ports of the country during the Ten-Day Dawn (February 1-11, which marks the anniversary of the victory of the Islamic Revolution).

Making the remarks in the meeting of the council of directors and deputy heads of this organization, Ali-Akbar Safaei said more than 70 very important projects in the field of sea economy and sea-oriented development have been designed and are being implemented.

Referring to the announced policies of sea-oriented development and the necessity of the integration of the country's maritime organization in the implementation of this document, the official emphasized that the literature of sea-oriented development policies is based on maritime governance and its implementation scope includes oceans, seas, coasts, ports and harbors.

In mid-November last year, the official said that the PMO was going to attract 1.0 quadrillion rials (about $1.968 billion) of investment in the country’s ports to develop maritime economy.

In a televised interview Safaei said that 470 trillion rials (about $924 million) of the mentioned figure is going to be invested by the private sector and the rest will be supplied by PMO.

According to the official, private contractors had so far signed deals worth 60 trillion rials (about $118 million) with PMO to implement development projects in the country’s ports.

“In order to realize the general development policies of the maritime sector, we need an integrated, coordinated and agile management at the highest level,” Safaei said.

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 facilitating the loading and unloading of goods, especially basic commodities, there.

It is worth mentioning that Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organization 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 the course of five years.

According to the PMO, 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.

MA