FNA - A senior official of the Ports and Maritime Organization of Iran (PMOI) announced on Wednesday that the country has signed several contracts with the European companies despite the US sanctions to further equip the strategic port of Chabahar.

"Supplying equipment for Chabahar's Shahid Beheshti port has again been put on agenda," Mohammad Reza Allahyar, a member of the PMOI's executive board, told FNA on Wednesday.

"A number of contracts have been inked to this end and the European companies will cooperate with us in this area and special equipment, including dredging machines, will be purchased" he added.

Provincial Director General of the PMOI in Southeastern Iran Behrouz Aqayee announced earlier this month that more than �30 million had been invested in Chabahar Port logistics' section since the start of the current Iranian calendar year of 1397 (on March 21, 2018).

The head of the provincial branch of the organization in the Sistan and Balouchestan Province in Southeastern Iran said that "Chabahar Port has an important role in regional and international transitions".

He underlined that Chabahar port is an "important and cheap way for landlocked countries, like Afghanistan, to get connected to high seas".

The fact that Iran has invested over one billion dollars in the first phase of Shaheed Beheshti Port in Chabahar to construct the infrastructures shows how important the port is, Aqaee said.

He said that transiting 110,000 tons of wheat and grains to Afghanistan was an instance to show the importance of sea transportation, adding that in the five months, Chabahar has transited goods six time what it had transited in the past five years.

Saying that Chabahar Port is known as the Gateway of Nations, Aqayee added that the fact of being exempted from the US sanctions would contribute to the ports progress to be internationally promoted.

After the US announced the second batch of its unilateral sanctions against Iran on November 8, Trump administration was forced to issue exemptions from sanctions to alleviate the negative consequences of anti-Iran economic war for the world.

The first list of exemptions included the name of six major buyers of Iran's oil; Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan, India, Turkey, Greece, and Italy. Iraq and Afghanistan were later excused in separate permission and Chabahar Port was also exempted because of India and China's involvement in developing the international hub.