Tehran, September 7 (MRUD NEWS)—An Iranian knowledge-based company has received the approval for the ballast water treatment system by the Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Environmental Protection (GESAMP) at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) which is a great success for maritime transportation, Deputy Minister and CEO of the Ports and Maritime Organization, Ali Akbar Safaei, informed.

The convention on the management of ships' ballast water for preventing transfer of harmful aquatic organisms through ships' ballast water has come into force since September 8, 2017, and one of the requirements of this convention is the use of a ballast water treatment system before discharging the water of ships' ballast tanks into the sea. So, the ships traveling on international voyages are obliged to install the processing system on board according to the schedule.

The CEO of the Ports and Maritime Organization stated that the production of this device has special technical complications and so far, 94 processing systems in the world have been able to receive final approval from the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) of the International Maritime Organization (IMO). In this regard, during the last 2 years, a knowledge-based company in Iran has succeeded in producing a sample of ballast water processing (called RADClean).

According to the Ports and Maritime Organization, the processing system received the initial approval from the International Maritime Organization last year and has currently received the final approval from the GESAMP specialized working group affiliated to the MEPC committee and after being put on the agenda of the 79th session of the Marine Environment Protection Committee (December this year), it will be ready for commercial production and installation on Iranian and non-Iranian commercial ships.