TEHRAN - French governmental cluster PÔLE AVENIA considers Iran a market for the future of its companies, its general manager Jérôme Porfirio told the Tehran Times in the 22nd International Oil, Gas, Refining and Petrochemical Exhibition of Iran (Iran Oil Show 2017). The exhibition was held at the Tehran Permanent International Fairgrounds from May 6 to 9.

Porfirio, who had previously attended the exhibit as the manager of an SME, said: “It’s the first time for me [attending Iran Oil Show] with the title of the director of the cluster. It’s a very good exhibition, a very large with a very large number of factors.”

PÔLE AVENIA, located in Pau in southwest France, is the only French competitiveness cluster in the geosciences sector. It’s a unique research potential in France, bringing together more than 4000 geoscience researchers and more than 100 industry partners including world leaders in energy (Total, GDF Suez, EDF, etc.) and local SMEs and MSEs.

“We are actually 170 member companies and R&D laboratory members and we try to improve R&D and the business for these members,” Porfirio stated.

“We are here now because we try to improve collaboration between the needs of Iranian companies and know-how of our members,” he said.

Although the general manager mentioned Iran a market for the future of their companies, he noted that some programs need to be solved before these business actions, “because we need to have the good bank partners to do these jobs, we need to identify the subjects, the needs of Iranian companies.”

“I know that Iranian companies have very good know-how in all oil and gas industries and what we need to do is to identify the French companies with the complementary know-how,” he added.

Sanctions removal opens door for business

Speaking of the advantages that sanctions removal brought for business in Iran, the French manager said: “We have some European manufacturers and now the sanctions are solved and could open the door for our companies.”

“We have plants manufacturing in Europe. Sure, if we want to improve business in Iran we need to have some partners and in the future some plants for manufacturing in partnership with Iranian companies in Iran, but the first step is to prove to these partners about the know-how as the real advantage for them,” he further explained.

“Secondly, we have some specific know-how which could interest Iranian companies”, he added.

Iranian market ‘huge, developing’

Also, Thomas Bideau, the business developer in THOMS, a web platform operated by PÔLE AVENIA and dedicated to the French companies within the subsurface energy markets, told the Tehran Times that he thought Iranian market is a huge market and a market in development.

“Working with Iranian people is very interesting because of course they have their own expertise, they have worked many years with the outside, many help from outsiders, so they have developed their technology, they have developed their own solution. I think the foreign companies and Iranian companies can work together and learn from each other, because Iranian companies don’t stop working during this time, they improve themselves and probably foreign companies can learn from the Iranian companies and reverse”, he commented.

He went on to inform: “Next month we are organizing an event in France in order to put together French companies and Iranian companies to see how we can work together. This is the first step of the program and the next step will be to bring the French companies to Iran in November probably. And after the first step meetings between French companies and Iranian companies, they will learn from each other, so we can see what they can bring to each other. And in November the French companies which are interested will be able to come back with us to visit Iranian companies and start working together. So, it’s an example of strategy we want to put in place in order to promote work between French companies and Iranian companies.”

Referring to his participation in Iran Oil Show, the French exhibitor said: “I’m working for PÔLE AVENIA. It’s the second time I’m participating in this exhibition, but the first time (last year) I was working for another company.”

“It’s interesting for us, because it’s an opportunity for us to contact companies in Iran to understand what are their needs and how we can put them in contact with French companies to propose them innovative solutions”, he explained.

He said that he saw improvement in this year’s edition of the exhibition in comparison to the last edition, “It’s a personal opinion, but I think that the companies I visited this year are bigger companies and most of them are working with international joint ventures and that’s what we want, we want them to promote joint venture also with French companies. I think it’s more and more interesting and efficient.”

“I’m very happy to be here”, he said at the end.