TEHRAN – First Vice President Es’haq Jahangir on Thursday inaugurated four major development projects worth over nine trillion rials (over $214.2 million) in the southeastern Sistan-Balouchestan’s Chabahar port, ILNA reported.

During his visit to the province, Jahangiri ordered the beginning of the projects for construction of a Maritime Rescue Coordination Center (MRCC) substation, the full radio coverage of the province’s coasts, a project for establishing firefighting services and drip irrigation systems at Shahid Kalantari, Shahid Beheshti and residential dormitories of the Chabahar port, as well as the investment project for the construction of storage tanks for petroleum (petrochemical) products in Shahid Beheshti port.

Over 180 billion rials (about $4.28 million) was invested in the MRCC station project, the radio coverage project is going to be completed with 110 billion rials (about $2.6 million) of funding, some 550 billion rials (about $13.09 million) is allocated for the firefighting and irrigation systems, while 8.169 trillion rials (about $194.5 million) is invested for the construction of the petrochemical storage facilities.

Upon his arrival in Chabahar on Wednesday evening, the official also inaugurated the first phase of Tang Fishing Port in Konarak County which was completed with 1.27 trillion rials (about $30.2 million) of investment.

He further visited the new town of Tis, Makran Agro-Industrial Complex, some of the province’s steel production complexes, Chabahar Petrochemical Park, and Shahid Beheshti Port’s development project.

On the sidelines of his visit to the mentioned sites, the First Vice President announced the government's serious determination to accelerate the development of Makran coasts and said: "Development of Makran coasts has been on the government's agenda for some time and recently the government has made some changes in the Makran Coastal Development Secretariat to accelerate the projects in this region."

He further noted that 68 projects worth 840 trillion rials (about $20 billion) have been considered for the development of Makran coasts in Sistan-Balouchestan province.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Jahangiri mentioned the Chabahar-Zahedan railway project as one of the major steps for the development of the mentioned port and said, the National Development Fund (NDF) has allocated $300 million for the completion of this project.

EF/MA