Iran Shipping Rising from Sanctions

By Aiswarya Lakshmi June 22, 2015

Malta Freeport has renewed its contracts in Iran with Hafiz Darya Shipping Lines (HDS) in the expectation that sanctions will be removed later this year, according to Times of Malta.

Officials in Malta Freeport were perplexing to convince Iranian inhabitant shipping line IRISL to use a port.

Iranian national shipping line IRISL – which had some 170 vessels in its heyday – started using Malta Freeport as its Mediterranean hub in 2004 and had become its second largest client.

It was first hit by US sanctions in 2009 and unilaterally pulled out of Malta in 2011, in the knowledge that Malta would have to apply sanctions by 2013.

In an effort to circumvent the sanctions, however, the Iranian government had begun privatising many major state-owned entities in 2009 and IRISL’s operations were taken over by a private company – the Hafiz Darya Shipping Lines (HDS).

The paper said Malta was intrigued by the fact that numerous countries were knocking on Iran’s doors in the hope of establishing commercial trade.

“There was a delegation of 40 top French companies in Tehran quite recently, and we understand that the Germans were not far behind,” the paper wrote.

The paper said the loss of Iranian clients had hit Malta Freeport hard. It said “even if Iranian trade with Europe starts to pick up again – which is by no means guaranteed given its ties with China – it will take time”.