Page 60 - IRANRptDec19

9.2.4​ Construction corporate news
Iranian engineering firms Farab Energy and Water Industries and Mahab Qods have completed a 15-kilometre water supply tunnel project in Sri Lanka, Tasnim news agency has reported.
The US, with its ultra-aggressive sanctions regime, has tried to turn Iran into an international trade and investment pariah that nobody will go near, but some Iranian engineering firms still have projects abroad. However, the fact that they are often hindered by dated technology typically combines with anxieties over the imposition of secondary American sanctions on those doing business with Iranians to deny such companies sought-after contracts. Farab currently has tunnel boring projects under way in Kenya and Tajikistan. Nasser Tarkeshdouz, director of Mahab Qods, a consulting engineering company that played a part in delivering the Uma Oya Multipurpose Development Project, said he was pleased that Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena agreed to inaugurate the “mega project”.
“Iran won this project in competition with powerful American, European and Asian companies,” Tarkeshdouz said of the project which will provide irrigation and drinking water to Badulla, Moneragala and Hambantota districts in southern Sri Lanka, according to IRIB.
The Iranian enterprise reportedly took over the project from Swiss engineers following tunnel safety concerns expressed by the European company, he added.
“Sri Lanka needs water transfer for its very economic existence, but its ground and soil conditions cause subsidence and water leakage,” added Tarkeshdouz. “Operating excavations in this country is not a job for everyone.” Pashoutan Ahmaddezfouli, from Farab Engineering, said the tunnel was one of the longest such pieces of infrastructure in Sri Lanka and one of the “few long water transmission tunnels of the world to lack intermediate access” making its “total build” technically difficult.
Mahab Qods is named on the US’s Specially Designated List of Iranian companies. It was added to the US watch list in 2010 as part of the Iranian Transactions Regulations. They target entities with links to the Iranian government.
Given reports that Mahab Qods was involved in nuclear power plant construction in Iran, both ​Tarkeshdouz​ and some senior officials have been specifically cited by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
60​ IRAN Country Report​ December 2019 www.intellinews.com