Sony DVD or Samsung?!

I was always thinking of having a harmonized way of producing marine equipments( could be all equipments) so that most of features and usages looks alike.

assume that you buy a Sony DVD player, after reading the manual you will get use with that and know how to operate it, after some days you dislike it and return in to shop, buy a Samsung DVD in stead, OK, how much of Sony features in which you learnt will be useful with Samsung? Why should we waste our time to read different manuals on same equipment? Time is gold!!!

Recently, European Marine Equipment Manufacturers Council( EMEC) is supporting a proposal by EU commission to introduce mutual recognition of equipment safety certification...its one step ahead!

Who is against standardising recognition of certificates? ofcourse class societies in which make a good money out of it($ 1.28 bn) because if for example ship is classed by Lloyd's but equipment is classed by DNV, ship owner should pay Loyd's to certify that equipment if he intends to install it on ship! new proposal will make Lloyd's to accept DNV's certificate...that's good but why we should waste our time on learning how to operate a Furuno radar and then again on JRC radar?

Iran and/or Dubai!

Iran and Dubai: Ports Comparison...coming soon!

...Saudi Land Bridge

...So
Persian gulf states and Indian subcontinent are among bright targets for shipping, shippers and investors.
I think Trend of port construction and evolution in Persian gulf and Oman sea leaves little room for Saudi land-bridge to become a competitive alternate to sea routes, hence traffic flow of close by areas wouldn't be affected.
Apparently, project itself, hasn't got regional prospects and its rather national oriented. Bandar Abbass, Bandar Busheshr, Bandar Imam relax, there is no threat from that side!!!
It has became a common complain these days in media, blogs and conferences to blame Iranian ports and on other hand praising Emirates ports. But, friends; tell me based on which methodology and facts/figures you compare Bandar Abbass and Jebel Ali? in next post I try to dig into ports comparison and benchmarking...For now, assume that you want to compare Ford and Mercedes. We all know that Ford is cheaper but Mercedes is more expensive, Mercedes is faster and better equipped. If you care you can find number of qualitative and quantitative measurements that enables you to compare this two: we can measure speed, we can look at equipment, we can find price...but what are port comparison indicators?

Iran in Region

...So Iran

Iran with over 70 m population, good telecommunication network all over country, good rail/road/air network infrastructure, young and educated society, has a big potential to be strong consumer market in near future.

Unfortunately non-oil export of country is few and it seems to be a pure importing country rather than having balance in import-export. To become an exporting country huge infrastructure investment is needed which should be accompanied with strong Regional and International integration( like trading in WTO). I have no in depth knowledge of Macroeconomic issues and policy making and what I mentioned is a common sense! studies on other countries economic development shows five stages(Rostow), this is the way in which all countries will follow in development process. Economy starts by investing in infrastructure which are resource intensive( importing oil, coal, iron ore...), then slowly goes to production of consumer goods( like cars, computers, IT...: exporting them!).

stage 1: Traditional society: economy is based on Agriculture..

Stage2:Transitional:development of education..

Stage3:Take-off:modern technology: investment:heavy industries..

Stage4:Maturity:production: machinery's: chemicals...

Stage5:Mass consumption:transition from heavy industries to consumer good production

But is it 10 year, 40 year...? Rostow says 60 years only for stage 3 !!! anyway, in which stage is Iran now or could be in next 15-20 years. we cant put Iran in Stage 1 ! as I already mentioned country has its infrastructure and in my rough idea could fit in initial steps of stage 3: Take off ( so please take off Iran!). If we believe that country is in its midway toward industrialization( as we can feel level of import of coal, iron ore...) we should simply remember that country will import more and more and main gate ways of import are southern seaports, mainly ports of Bandar Abbass and bandar Imam Khomeini, both situated in Persian gulf where Dammam, Jubail, Dubai, Oman... are situated.

So...

Saudi Land Bridge

Talked about central America, now I shift to our region: a similar project but in less competitive terms: Saudi land bridge Rail project.

This will connect Port of dammam in Persian gulf to port of Jeddah in Red sea. its a single track railway( capable of being expanded), 950 km long and will be operated by a private company. compared to Canal case, competition environment is not that fierce here, project is in national level (optimistically regional) and no considerable effect could be foreseen on Iranian ports.

Its claimed that land bridge will save 5-6 days compared to sea transport(ships discharge and load in jeddah instead of sailing for 5 days to dammam, its very economical without considering advantage of ECONOMIES OF SCALE in sea transport). A vital concept already employed in this project is Focal point of RIYADH DRY PORT which will provide logistic platform for smooth flow of freight through land bridge.

Studying Saudi non-oil export shows main importing countries from saudi are: Persian gulf states states 33%, Asia 26% , EU and N. America 19% (year 2003) so its obviously a good idea to shift export hub from Dammam to Jeddah ( closer to 45% of overseas market) despite the fact that industrial centre of Saudi is on northern part; dammam and jubail!

Principle sources of import are oversea as well, being N. America, Asia and EU(2004).

...BUT what would be the effect on Iran?

Panama Canal

Panama canal expansion is taking long time to complete, Port of California/Los angles might be congested again, if you were living in Mexico, didn't you think about a mexican solution?

Yes they did! narrowest point in Mexico(between Atlantic and pacific ocean) is about 200 km. so you can think about two ports on either side connected by a small land bridge could serve the merging traffic flow.

so they can both attract considerable portion of canal traffic plus serving southern US, BUT its not working! why?

As per Canal authority studies; a container moving via land bridge would be handled six times before it is loaded on the other side, incurring a cost of $ 435 per TEU compared with $ 49 cost incurred passing through channel!

Do you still prefer land bridge even if canal is congested?(of course level of congestion is not as high as to convince you to pay about 400 more, but might it be in future?)

Broader Middle East!

I have to narrow myself and Middle east to boundaries of Iran(Persian Gulf), Arab states , otherwise I wont be able to give comments on whole Middle east, nor I have sufficient knowledge on whole area!

On the other hand I try to give comments on Pakistan, India and Arabian sea, as well as Iran's Northern neighbours.

priority is with sea/land transportation in southern Iran and if I could get in to international issues, I will not hesitate.

Avoiding overall speeches, unsupported arguments and inaccurate data is difficult task, considering unavailability of Statistics, unreliability of Internet resources and unofficial rumours!