Tehran, December 3 (MRUD NEWS)— Khosrow Saraei, the director general of the office of transit, logistics, and agreements at Iran Ports and Maritime Organization (PMO) informed of increased maritime transport between Iran and Russia during recent months. 

In his remarks, pointing to the potentials of maritime transit between Iran and Russia, Saraei said: "Fortunately, maritime transport between the two countries has grown significantly in recent months by using multimodal transportation, but there is still room for further growth to meet the needs of both sides".

He also added that we need to take advantage of transit and trade capacities between the two countries and put state and non-state ports of the Caspian Sea into operation. 

Elsewhere referring to the visits of Russian delegations to the northern and southern ports of Iran, Khosrow Saraei said: Since the early 2023, several Russian delegations, especially the "Rusagro" company, have visited Iran's ports and we hope that such measures will lead to an increase in the share of maritime transport between the two countries.

Further Saraei called for forming joint multimodal transport companies as one of the solutions to increase the volume of transit and trade between the two countries and said: Russian ports need to pay serious attention to dredging as well as reducing the waiting time for Iranian ships.

He further stated: Iran has expressed its interests in using ro-ro ships in the Caspian Sea, and in this regard, it has considered a 80% discount on tariff for these ships. 

The director general of the Ports and Maritime Organization (PMO) office of transit, logistics, and agreements referred to the negotiations between the two countries as another practical measure that will accelerate achieving transit and commercial goals of the two countries to facilitate the movement of Iranian ships in the Volga River in the winter. 

In the end, Saraei noted that Iran's maritime transport is ready for  20 million tons of freight transit, but this volume depends on the road and rail transport capacity of Russia and Iran in the backshore.