Iran is responding to the challenge of increasing port capacity with ambitious new container facilities.

The total volume of freight handled at Iranian ports last year reached 110 million tonnes, with non-oil cargo accounting for 63.5 million tonnes of that figure.

There has been a 16 percent rise in non-oil cargo operations in Iranian ports and a 14 percent growth in container throughput compared with last year. Container throughput is accounting for an increasingly large slice of maritime traffic.

There was a time when the main container port, Shahid Rajaee, close to Bandar Abbas, barely hit 300,000 TEUs annually, but now it handles more than 1.4 million TEUs.

A number of expansion projects are underway.

Bandar Abbas will start work in the next few months on a scheme to increase container capacity from 1.9 million TEUs to three million TEUs in the first phase, and ultimately to six million TEUs.

Currently 17 shipping lines call regularly at Bandar Abbas, boosting container volumes. More than half of containerised cargo used to arrive in the port on feeder services, but 65 percent is now carried by deep-sea liner services.

Iran's ports and maritime authority is also planning to upgrade two other ports bordering the Persian Gulf, Bushehr and Chabahar.

Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Line (IRISL), the national carrier, has significant expansion plans with increasing shipping demand resulting from the general growth of the Iranian economy.

The carrier's orderbook includes six 6,500 TEUs and four 5,018 TEUs vessels being built in Korea for delivery in 2008-09. IRISL has started moving containers on the Asia-Europe Express 1 (AEX1) service as part of a slot exchange deal with China Shipping (CSCL).

This bypasses Iran for the first time. IRISL's deal on the AEX1 service covers Pusan, Tianjin, Ningbo, Shanghai and Chiwan, discharging in Le Havre, Felixstowe, Hamburg, Rotterdam and Antwerp.

Previously, the carrier IRISL transhipped in Bandar Abbas or Dubai.

In return, CSCL takes slots on IRISL's Europe Container Line service, providing direct links between Nhava Sheva, Dubai, Bandar Abbas and Europe with transhipment options in the Mediterranean over Genoa and Malta.