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Your Global Partner. Today, this is the motto of a shipping company that started out with as few as two ships and evolved into a huge organization now called the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines or simply, IRISL. The fleet of Iran’s dominant national carrier currently comprises as many as 120 modern ocean-going vessels capable of carrying a total of 3.2 million DWT of cargo. Such a remarkable capability places IRISL in the 21st ranking among the world’s major shipping lines.
Expansion policies of IRISL in the new millennium clearly called for a broader vision toward global developments. To meet this prerequisite, IRISL recently gathered its global agency network for a three-day event (November 10-12) in Tehran.
Held for the further improvement of IRISL’s operations and services and exploring better ways for a fruitful cooperation to build a successful global shipping network, IRISL’s Fourth General Agency Meeting was attended by IRISL top executives, managing directors of IRISL subsidiary companies, and overseas representatives from Italy, Germany, Spain, England, France, Holland, Belgium, Portugal, Sweden, Japan, Tunisia, Oman, Brazil, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, India, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, U.A.E., Malaysia, South Korea, Hong Kong, Kuwait and Indonesia.
The meeting was the sixth in a series of IRISL’s principal agency meetings and the fourth in Tehran. The last meeting was held in Tehran two years ago and since then two sectorial meetings were held in Singapore and Milan.

The Fourth General Agency Meeting of IRISL was more than an opportunity to review the past performance of representatives; it was an occasion for a global network to launch an aggressive business campaign.

As noted by IRISL President Ali A. Afkhami, “The management of IRISL considers it necessary and beneficial to have regular principal agency meetings at regular intervals in order to keep the agents abreast with the events taking place in the company, to inform them of any new requirements of the company, to provide us an opportunity to review our performances, to assess the prevailing situation of trade, to ascertain the future trend in each of our trade sectors, and most important of all, to create a better understanding and working relationship between the Line and the agents.”
The fundamental issues, policies and objectives of IRISL were reviewed and openly discussed in the forum. The meeting also provided grounds for the exchange of views between representatives on the network’s service with special emphasis on the container shipment which was launched over two years ago in the Far East and South East Asia and almost one year ago in Europe.
In addition, participants endeavored to identify the obstacles that have stood in the way for achieving other goals raised and discussed in the two previous meetings in Singapore and Milan.
The bottom line of the meeting was perhaps revealed in the opening address of IRISL President when he stated, “I would request our esteemed agents to pay due attention to the following issues: Full awareness of IRISL’s advantageous status in regional maritime transportation. We are not only placed in a unique geographical location and have the most convenient and economical land access across the Persian Gulf, Oman Sea and the Indian Ocean to the CIS countries and Russia through the Caspian Sea in the north, but also we are ideally situated in the north-south transit corridor. This sector of trade has much potential but has not been fully exploited by us. Our agents should consider launching aggressive marketing campaign so that we can develop maritime trade in various sectors.”
The report on the following pages offers a coverage on IRISL’s Fourth Global Agency Network. It reflects choices of voices who have shaken hands with IRISL to get ahead in maritime trade.