TEHRAN – Siavash Arjmandzadeh, the director general of ports and maritime department of southwestern Bushehr Province, has announced that the port is ready for receiving large-scale vessels with over 45,000 tons of capacity.

Mentioning the dredging operations conducted in the port over the past two years, Arjmandzadeh said: “The access channel of Bushehr port has become ready to receive vessels with over 30,000 tons of capacity and even higher.”

Noting that one of the major policies of Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organization (PMO) is to enhance distributing basic goods through different ports of the country, Arjmandzadeh said:” Facilitating distribution, reducing costs and shortening transportation route are some of the benefits of decentralization of loading and unloading of basic goods in the country’s ports.”

He further pointed to the good performance of Bushehr port in loading and unloading operations, saying: “Fortunately, ships do not face demurrage in Bushehr port so the port is suitable for importing basic goods.”

The official also announced that his office is going to offer a 100 percent discount on loading and unloading fees for large-scale vessels with 40,000-45,000 tons of capacity.

Earlier this month, Arjmandzadeh had stated that loading and unloading of commodities at the ports of Bushehr province doubled in the first month of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-April 20), as compared to the same month of the previous year.

He announced that 401,000 tons of goods have been loaded and unloaded at the ports of province in the first month of the present year.

The official said that the mentioned commodities were loaded and unloaded from 28 vessels.

He also announced that over 246,000 tons of goods were exported from the ports of Bushehr in the first month of this year, indicating 179 percent growth compared to the first month of the past year.

EF/MA