EMEA News
Sanctions Could Bankrupt IRISL
Western sanctions have caused Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) "huge losses," and if the pressure is escalated then "the company will face bankruptcy," Managing Director Mohammad Hossein Dajmar told Iranian business daily Jahan-e Sanat, according to English-language press reports.
The number of vessels calling at Iranian ports, which handle much of the nation's imported food and consumer goods, has been cut in half this year due to the tightening of U.S. and European sanctions, Reuters reports.
"If this situation continues, certainly our operations will face serious problems," Dajmar said.
"Shipping has been among the primary objectives of sanctions."
Beyond the economic sanctions, Dajmar said the company was hit by a cyber attack in August 2011.
"There was considerable damage," he said. "A lot of pressure was imposed on us."
Front Companies
The U.S Treasury and European Union have accused IRISL of changing its flags or using front companies to avoid sanctions, but Dajmar said International Maritime Organization (IMO) numbers make the company's ships easy to track.
"We cannot access European waters through changing flags, so we do not take the risk," he said.
He added that 20 of the company's 165 ships are laid up.
Western officials have accused IRISL of transporting weapons for Iran, but Dajmar said the company does not work with the nation's military.
"They don't have such large needs and any needs that they do have they produce domestically," he said.
"It's not like during the war years [in the 1980s when Iran and Iraq were fighting] when the amount of weapons was large and to move them they used ships."
Among the hits the company has taken is an embargo on ship insurance by the European Union, which has forced IRISL to set up domestic insurers, something Dajmar said has hurt the company's financial situation.
In September, Iran Insurance Co. Chairman Javad Sahamian said Iran will provide coverage for any ship carrying Iranian oil.
Dajmar said the government, which owns a 20 percent state in the shipping line, should help it deal with losses, according to the Journal of Turkish Weekly, a publication of Turkish think tank International Strategic Research Organization.
