The head of Maritime Steel Foundry Limited said that he's having difficulties getting money from his Iranian investors to keep the century old New Glasgow operation running.
Mr Jafarnia, a metallurgical engineer from Iran who is now the president of Maritime Steel, said that “He has three Iranian investors backing his venture. But they haven't been able to send him money for about two months from the Islamic republic now facing Western pressure over its controversial nuclear program and recent missile testing.”
He added that "The Iranian government actually has stopped them from sending any money from Iran outside, therefore it made my situation a little bit difficult right now. If it continues like this, it means, if they cannot send any money out from Iran at the same time the banks here are not co operating or the Nova Scotia government is not helping us, we don't have any other choice except closing the place."
He said that "We wanted to run it, we did the maintenance, we prepared ourselves, we produced casting and we are going to start, but all of these issues made a very difficult situation for us."
Mr Jafarnia said that part of the attraction for his Iranian backers was the possibility of getting Canadian passports in return for their investment in Maritime Steel. He added that "They are not in a rush to come to Canada because they have business down there and they don't want to actually come here to live. But at the same time, they like to be able to travel easily."
Maritime Steel is slated to start production in mid January 2012. About 20 people are working at the plant.
Mr Jafarnia said that he had orders from locomotive maker Electro Motive, which just locked out Canadian Auto Workers union members this week at its plant in London. He added that "Right now, I have a couple of orders arranged for them so I don't know what will happen with that. It may delay it. But I can't give any exact prediction right now."
Mr Jafarnia said he is also finalized a contract with Michigan Steel Inc. He added that "They are going to bring us a lot of customers."
But Mr Jafarnia said that he needs at least USD 1 million in working capital to get Maritime Steel up to 50% of its production capacity. He added that "Right now, we are looking in North America to see if I can find any other investors. There are a lot of doors that we need to knock on."
He has also been asking potential customers to pay a portion of production costs up front. He said that "We are not pessimistic yet. There are still ways to run it."
Mr Jafarnia, the foundry's former quality control manager, took over the operation in July after the court approved his USD 1.25 million bid for the business. Maritime Steel was placed in receivership just over a year ago, after its parent company, Cameron Corporation Limited, called in a USD 17.75 million loan.
(Sourced from www.www.herald.ca)
