Baku, Azerbaijan, July 22
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
The Taiwanese shipping line Wan Hai berthed at Iran's Shahid Rajaee Port as EU sanctions against the country's shipping industry have been eased, the Fars news agency reported on July 22.
Wan Hai container with 6,000 TEU capacity berthed at Shahid Rajaee Port in the southern province of Hormozgan neighboring the Persian Gulf on July 22.
Before the easing of sanctions, ships had to unload cargoes at ports in Turkey, the UAE, Georgia, and Oman, and then the cargoes were transported to Iran.
Direct shipment through Shahid Rajaee Port will decrease costs $40,000-100,000 per ton of cargo.
Other ships from India, China, and South Korea are also scheduled to berth at Shahid Rajaee Port in the future, the IRNA news agency quoted Ali Jahandideh, the deputy director of the Ports and Maritime Organization of Iran as saying on July 21.
In June 2012, the EU imposed sanctions against Tidewater, Iran's dominant ports operator, which is co-owned by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The measure forbade any EU person or entity from making direct or indirect payments for Tidewater's benefit.
That meant exporters, importers, ship-owners and charterers can't pay loading fees at Tidewater's seven ports, including Shahid Rajaee Port. Ninety percent of Iran's container traffic passes through that port at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf.
The loading and unloading capacity of Shahid Rajaee Port currently stands at 88 million tons per year.
