With three ships and limited capabilities, “Maritime Transport” is trying to emulate experiences of friendly countries

Despite the Western sanctions and their repercussions, the General Establishment  for Maritime Transport was able to continue operating its ships according to the available capabilities, and to achieve high revenues that exceeded 18.7 billion pounds from the beginning of this year to date, with an estimated rate of 300 percent comparing to  the revenues of 2021, which amounted to 6.7 billion pounds.

The General Director of the Establishment  , Engineer Hassan Mahla, told “Tishreen” newspaper: Since the beginning of the current year to date, the Establishment  has been able to transport  174,263 tons of goods on board its ships, with a completion rate of nearly 80 percent of its annual plan for 2022, despite the difficulties and Western sanctions and the unilateral coercive measures imposed on the country in general and the institution and its ships in particular, in addition to the regional and international political changes and developments.

Mahla also indicated that most international ports refrained from dealing with the Establishment and its ships, and boycotted a large number of companies supplying ship supplies, spare and maintenance parts with them which led to the difficulty of repairing ships. It’s worthy to mention the boycott of international fuel supply companies and communication stations for ships, which led to the blocking of the possibility of communication with ships and the impact on work, especially on the open seas.

Mahla indicated that the Maritime Transport Establishment owns three modern ships, the first “Phoenicia” which is a cargo tanker with a tonnage of approximately 18,000 tons, and “Laodicea” and “Syria”, which are heavy and general cargo carriers with a tonnage of approximately 12,700 tons each.

The company’s plans for the current year includes the improvement and renewal of ships in order to preserve their technical and navigational readiness, in addition to training and qualifying the employees of the Establishments sailing boats, in accordance with international maritime training and qualification standards.

In the context of developing and expanding the work, Mahla indicated that the Maritime Transport Establishment is studying all possible solutions and benefiting from the experiences of friendly countries to develop and expand its work in accordance with the current and exceptional circumstances and within the framework of government directives.

Inas Abdulkareem