Defense Ministry Signs €9.5mln Contract to Construct 4 Vessels

Minister of Defense Amir Hataim and Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mohammad Eslami signed a contract today for the construction of four vessels in 15 months.

Eslami said handing the construction of operational vessels of Ports and Maritime Organization of Iran to the Ministry of Defense will result in an increase in domestic production of the country’s marine industry.

Deputy Roads Minister Mohammad Rastad said the contract is worth 9.5 million euros in total.

“In the first phase of the contract, four vessels will be built, including two search and rescue ones and two others for carrying officers in charge of safety management onboard vessels. The total value of the agreement is 9.5 million euros, and the marine industry will deliver the vessels in 15 months,” the deputy minister explained.

He went on that the two search and rescue vessels will have a length of 19.3 meters, a width of 5 meters, a 1.5 meters draft, and a speed of 40 knots, adding that the vessels will be built under a 5.1 million euro contract within 15 months.

The other two vessels for carrying safety control officers will be built with a length of 18.2 m, a width of 4.6 m, a draft of 1.1 m, and a speed of 25 knots. The contract is worth 4.4 million euros, he added.

 Iranian Defense Ministry and relevant industries have taken long strides in tapping into domestic potentials for constructing different types of vessels.

Two new indigenized Qadir-class submarines joined the Iranian Naval fleet in the Southern waters of the Persian Gulf late in November.

Late in July, Rear Admiral Khanzadi announced that "Fateh submarine which is the first mid-class submarine built by the Islamic Republic of Iran will also be unveiled soon".

Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei in a meeting with the Navy officials and commanders late in November said that delivering Sahand destroyer and Fateh and Qadir submarines to the Naval forces heralded possibility for further progress.

In relevant remarks in mid-November, Rear Admiral Khanzadi underlined that the country's experts had decreased the time needed for manufacturing destroyers to less than two years, adding that a new destroyer and a submarine would be delivered to his forces soon.

"Today, we enjoy the capacity to build destroyers in a timespan of less than two years and we are making efforts to reduce it to less than one year," Khanzadi said in an interview with the Arabic-language al-Alam news channel.

He added that a new home-made destroyer named Sahand that carries helicopters, and a new domestically-manufactured submarine named Fateh would join the Iranian navy in the near future.

"Fateh will be a surprise for the trans-regional threats and they (the enemies) should wait for its delivery to the Islamic Republic's Navy," the top commander of the Navy said.