The memorandum of cooperation concluded between FANAVARAN SYRAF and WELDMEC MARINE, a Finnish company, has provided the opportunity for joint construction of vessels.
In a seminar hosted on May 10, 2016 by SYRAF at Olympic Hotel, Tehran, regarding the above memorandum of cooperation, Dr. Hasan Ziaei, SYRAF CEO, declared, “According to this memorandum, up to 85% of the investment required for vessel construction will be financed by the Finnish bank and the rest 15% by SYRAF.”
Ziaei went on, “Since its date of establishment, SYRAF has continued its development without any help of bank facilities and merely assisted by its own capabilities along a well-dated progress plan, and that is why SYRAF showed inconsiderable vulnerability during the recession.”
Dr. Ziaei also noted that, “Since 2006, development of SYRAF has been practically based on strategic goal setting and needless of governmental resources. However, vessel construction became SYRAF’s target in 2011 and the company concentrated its focus on the construction of vessels with less than 25 m length. At the time when trust in maritime industries had been totally lost, SYRAF succeeded in restoring the trust to the extent that the Ports & Maritime Organization and several companies initiated their cooperation with SYRAF and regarded this company as a maritime producer.”
He pointed that, “It shall be accepted that customers have the right to pick and purchase quality products and that it is not customers who must provide support for production, but the government that is expected to support and smooth conditions for production.”
Emphasizing the importance of R&D, Dr. Ziaei added, “One of the reasons which led to SYRAF being chosen as a knowledge-based firm is that SYRAF, after having conducted research and development, designed and eventually produced the respective product and continued the process to market and sell it; and the whole chain helped SYRAF foster its understanding of production.”
“I can definitely say that SYRAF’s aim of being selected as a knowledge-based enterprise was merely to distinguish it from other enterprises because SYRAF has been knowledge-based for so long but Iran has not have a means of recognizing and distinguishing such enterprises” Dr. Ziaei further added.
Having informed the audience of that, “From 1998 through 2005, FANAVARAN SYRAF has annually introduced to the market three new products,” he added “At the present time, SYRAF has about 80 products.”
At the end of his address, Dr. Ziaei gave some good news, “YARAF has made a decision to enter international markets and its current status helps pave the way for SYRAF to have, despite its long distance with the Iran’s water borders, a voice in the Central Asia and Middle East markets.
Gaining the Latest Technologies Is the Only Strategy toward Resistance Economy
Along this seminar, Eng. Hasan Reza Safari, the honorable CEO of Iranian Classification Society, pointing to maritime sanctions, opened up the issue of resistance economy: “There are various types of economies: parallel, restorative, defense and model economies. Model economy is the same as resistance economy, having a large scale, long term view at the economy. The latter type of economy is the one that has smoothed the path for emergence of the Islamic civilization.”
Eng. Safari pointed out to ‘hindrance of corruption’ as the most important objective to be pursued by the resistance economy, “Humanization of economy, privatization and getting released from dependence on oil derived revenue all can be obtained merely by the resistance economy.”
Eng, Safari suggested gaining modern technologies as a strategy toward resistance economy, “To have the resistance economy, we require the entire stages of gaining technologies including exploitation, repair and maintenance, construction and engineering of process development, and engineering of technology development. One means of gaining technologies is to transfer it.”
He further added, “Technology transfer needs to be completely performed in the order of priority. In post- JCPOA era, we have to, while trying to transfer modern wind technologies, take measures to be more responsive to the needs of Iranian consumers. We also have to vest in private sector the management of the exploitation of maritime industries equipment.”
Use of Low-Sulfur Fuels Needs to be Put into Practice in Persian Gulf and Oman Sea
This seminar also welcomed Mohammad Reza Ghaderi, the honorable director general of Maritime Environment Preservation of the Ports & Maritime Organization. Having pointed to the joint project of SYRAF and the Finnish company, Ghaderi stated, “This cooperation is expected to transfer to Iran the Finnish experience of how to protect and preserve Baltic Sea environment.”
Ghaderi continued, “As per the latest approvals of Conference on Marine Pollution Control (MPC) held at International Maritime Organization (IMO), countries are expected to try to reduce their greenhouse emissions. In marine section, MPC provided for some maritime projects to be realized to reduce greenhouse emissions.”
“Baltic region is regarded as a region low-sulfur fuels are used therein. We should follow similar procedures for Persian Gulf and Oman Sea. We need to utilize Finland’s experience with this respect.”
This seminar was concluded with the address of Eng. Ahmadzadeh, the honorable director general of Equipment Supply and Maintenance of the Ports & Maritime Organization.
Best Staff Member
In the seminar, Mohammad Sattari was acclaimed as 2016 best staff member and given a recognition plaque and a gift.
