60 Port Contracts Worth $923m Signed With Private Investors

Iran's Ports and Maritime Organization signed 60 contracts worth 36 trillion rials (about $923 million at market exchange rate) with private sector companies on Monday.

Based on the agreements, the private firms will invest in the development of port cities and provinces, including 861 billion rials ($22 million) in Khorramshahr, 1,785 billion rials ($45.76 million) in Chabahar, 5,112 billion rials ($131.07 million) in Bushehr, 2,869 billion rials ($73.56 million) in Amirabad Port, 8,031 billion rials ($205.92 million) in Khuzestan Province, 13,750 billion ($352.56 million) in Hormozgan Province and 2,398 billion rials ($61.48 million) in Gilan Province.

"With the freshly-signed contracts, private sector investments in Iranian ports have reached 100 trillion rials ($2.56 billion)," said managing director of PMO, Mohammad Saeed-Nejad.

The official also announced that the loading of the first cargo of equipment purchased for the southeastern port of Chabahar is underway in Germany. He put the total value of the contract to equip the Iranian port at $403 million and said three cranes worth $40 million are part of the first shipment.

Chabahar serves as Iran’s only oceanic port and consists of two ports, namely Shahid Kalantari and Shahid Beheshti.

“Development of container terminals 1 and 2 of Shahid Rajaei Port has been put out for tender and currently the assessment of the four preferred companies out of 28 bidders is in progress,” Saeed-Nejad added.

PMO is planning to expand the capacity of Iranian commercial ports from the current 209 million tons to 217 million tons. It is planning to increase domestic container terminals’ capacity from 4.86 million TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) to 5 million TEU by the yearend (March 2017).

More than 71.27 million tons of goods were loaded and unloaded in Iranian ports during the first half of the current Iranian year (started March 20). Over 45.7 million tons of the throughput pertained to non-oil commodities, while 25.5 million tons were oil products.