TEHRAN – Head of Iran’s Fisheries Organization (IFO) Hossein Hosseini said 180 knowledge-based companies have expressed readiness for collaboration with the country’s fishery industry, IRIB reported.

Hosseini made the remarks at the inauguration ceremony of the country’s first event on innovative, knowledge-based, and job-creating entrepreneurship in the fishery industry on Saturday.

According to the official, the innovative proposals presented by 48 of the mentioned 180 companies are in line with the IFO’s development programs so the organization is going to benefit from their capabilities in the near future.

He said the organization is going to provide the said companies with low-interest bank facilities in order to pursue their proposed projects and commercialize their achievements.

As reported, the first event on innovative, knowledge-based, and job-creating entrepreneurship in the fishery industry covered a variety of topics and areas including reproduction and breeding of aquatic species (fish, crustaceans, mollusks, aquatic plants, algae, etc.), marine fish breeding in cages, fishing, resource assessment and management, new fishing technologies and methods, resource protection, processing, packaging and economy of aquatics, new technologies (nanotechnology, biotechnology, etc.) in the fishery industry, trade and export of aquatics, production and trade of ornamental fishes, nutrition, health, and ancillary industries, fishing tourism, as well as research on cosmetic, medicine, and health products that can be obtained from aquatics.

Also, exploring the necessity of innovation in the fishery industry with a focus on the country’s current needs, identifying idea makers and innovators, revealing latent and hidden opportunities in the field of fisheries and related industries, facilitating effective communication between knowledge-based companies and fisheries, establishing a data center for collecting applied research achievements in the industry and making the necessary preparations for marketing and promoting such achievements are reported to be among the goals of the mentioned event.

EF/MA