Fereydounkenar, Mazandaran Province’s only private-sector port, has joined the container shipping network of Khazar Sea Shipping Lines Company.
According to Davoud Tafti, the company’s managing director, the first container ship with a capacity of 10-TEU refrigerated containers and 40-TEU dry containers will dock at Aktau Port in Kazakhstan in the next few days after leaving Fereydounkenar.
Regular container shipping services will be provided between Fereydounkenar and Aktau Port in Kazakhstan, and Astrakhan in Russia to help increase Mazandaran’s non-oil exports.
“With more than 1,000 20-foot and 40-foot refrigerated containers, Khazar Sea Shipping Lines Co. has launched regular shipping services between Iran’s northern ports and the port of Aktau and Astrakha,” he was quoted as saying by IRNA.
Fereydounkenar is Iran’s first privately-managed port and the closest to Tehran through Firouzkouh and Haraz Road.
“At present, there are eight private-run sea and dry ports in the country engaged in trade with neighbors to the north and south,” Majid Yousefi, the secretary of Iran’s Association of Private Ports Investors, told the Persian daily Iran.
Private sea ports are Fereydounkenar in Mazandaran Province, Astara Port in the northern Gilan Province, Khvajeh Nafas Port in the northeastern province of Golestan, Bandar Genaveh is southern Bushehr Province and Bandar Aftab (Garzeh) in southern Hormozgan Province.
In recent years, the government has also handed over the privatization of dry ports, including Sarakhs dry port in Khorasan Razavi, Pishgaman Dry Port in Yazd and Pybar Terminal of Dogharoun in Khorasan Razavi.
“The Ports and Maritime Organization prepared infrastructures, such as wharfs, breakwater structures and warehouses for some ports, like Fereydounkenar, then handed them over to the private sector to complete structural operations by purchasing needed equipment. In Astara, the private sector was also tasked with the establishment of infrastructures,” Yousefi said.
“Astara and Fereydounkenar have the highest volume of trade with Central Asian countries, Russia and Azerbaijan, and Genaveh and Aftab carry out economic exchanges with Oman, Qatar and Kuwait. Of course, compared with ports like Shahid Rajaee and Imam Khomeini, privately owned ports have smaller volume of trade but there is no significant distinction in the kind of goods they handle. A variety of goods are being exported or imported via private ports,” he noted.
