Although he is young and its been quite short time since creating the company but he’s been very successful even with quick changes in the exchange market and international business , reading this article will open some new doors of information and experience about cellulous and hygienic industrial and tissue importing for those who are intrested in .
Mr.Niyakamian since you started your introduction with education , please tell us about the connection between your job and your ejucation .
Generally my job is related to my ejucation but if we look in the details everything is unreal and diffrent and none of the theories and lessons in our university works in our market ( iran’s market ) infact no scientific way would be enough to make you reach your goals in our market . if we talk about Privatization we’ll see that efforts in this field is were not enough , in topic of investment we used to think like investment is good and the investor is bad .. when requests become more for a particular merchandise its price also goes higher and higher . one of our most important lessons in university was the philip’s diagram which explains the relation between unemployment and being expensive , so when merchandise gets more and more expensive , the rate of unemployment decreases and same results about its inverse . but unfortunately we see that in iran its exatcly the opposite , when merchandise gets expensive the result is increase in unemployment .so in all cases there are some paradoxes which wont let things go on so smoothly .
Please introduce your company ( pars eqtesad kian ) to our readers .
Our company was founded in 2006 and started its activity by importing basics in diffrent industrial fields from korea , china , indonesia . the professional part of our activity began with importing cellulous and hygenic and now we are represented as AAPGOLD of china and importing paper pulp and other important things for cellulous in iran .our company also hassome active offices in other countries such as malaysia , netherland , korea and we with their help we import high quallity cellulous basics and convenient price . currently we import fluff from china , netherland , usa , and sometimes malaysia and uae ( emirates ) . most of the transactions are done with orders from customers . and we are discussing with korea too .
What was the first idea of joining this field and why ?
Well i always liked business since childhood , my father was a employee and i knew i never wanted to be employee . when i was a teenager i used to sell stamps and chicken and everything i could and because i liked by the time i got my Bachelor's degree i started my business activity in diffrent backgrounds such as plants and exporting kiwi and ... but i couldnt achieve good profit because i was investing in diffrent things so i decided to do things more seriously . for fourteen years ive been financial chief in a group then i became vice president in the same group and in the end i started a joint assembly project with persian automobile builder “ Pars Khodro ” . after earning enough knowledge and experience at the first step i registred a company then i thought about its activities and field of work because i had to seperate myself from my old jobs and then step forward into new professional job and this was indeed a very hard situation . my first experiences wasnt very bad but return of money wasnt fast and good enough . first i started to import essential Petrochemical goods from korea then i got dragged into cellulose industry with kraft paper and floating ..
In these 7 since that you created the company , what have you done about improving your profession ? when was the climax of your company ?
The year of 91 ( 2011~12) had two entirely diffrent half for the company , first half we lost so much but second half we earned so much . with keeping connections and activity with our foreign partners we successfully managed to earn credit and reputation and we were able to to import higher quallity goods with lower price and so our customers became permanent . quallity has been always our first criterion . for example , we import tissue 13.5 gm . this gm will suffice for working unit per each kg , this being said , other brands may not be able to cover even 8 working units. Our relations with foreign countries has been very good for us , for instance in the field of tissue with cooperation of mr behzad yaghouby who at the same time as me imported goods from china we were successfull to make chinese factories understand persian’s relish and its delicasy about tissue .
Iran’s taste for tissue is to have all three qualifications which are : washable , light color , being soft .
And in iran we would never use recycle for tissue but we have to note that these standards except iran are only found in usa , and other countries dont want all three terms but they even use recycle as well .
Is your company only intrested in importing goods or do you produce aswell ?
In production topic we only have one active unit in QOM ( city )
And in other fields we cooperate with other factories .
For how long that unit has been active ?
In the year of 90 we started that unit with our logo but we still dont have any particular name for the production .
How much quallity of the basic ingredients is important for production ?
Maybe higher than 80 percent because the quallity of the paper and the outer view of its packaging and everything is important for its user .
How do you observe production’s quallity have you encountered a problem yet ?
First that we imported from china they gave us instructions about softness and later we achieved a product with 13.5 gm . also ministry of health gives us health certifications that we give to quallified producers . and 2 inspectors from us constantly observe producers and make sure about health and quallity of tissue and transportation process .
How much does boycotts and financial fluctuations trouble your profession ?
First half of the year 90 we suffered some losses due to rapid changes of the market because we didnt wanted to terminate the ended deals and on the other hand the other deals with recent price ( before price went high ) were dealt . in the year of 1392 which means 2013 we had new problems due to change of currency transferring money in iran included laws and rules that out of iran is diffrent and so converting currency takes very high price some times 13 percent .
More importantly it takes about 3 to 5 month to complete a deal and deliver it , on the other hand in all of the world 10 days for producer , 25 days for transport and 1 week for clearance and delivery and the whole project time is about less than 2 month . ofcource this isnt only our problem and most of these problem has its roots from boycotts but some others are about new laws and rules that come everyday and trouble us so much . the latest idea in this field was the discussion of token which is related to clearances in ports by the importer .
Problems in your way have they ever made you regret your decision about joining this profession ?
Ive had that momment when you think “ i wish i was never born ” but no i didnt ever regret it .
Hows importing from china compared to other countries ?
Well the price of producers in china is lowest but due to heavy tax , more than 17 percent , china cannot accept yuan from us and biggest problem is that we need to pay from another country to china but receive the merchandise from china but the quallity , speed , and assurance of china is good and its distance with iran is not so much . we have the same problems with indonesia about transferring money .
Do you use currency exchange ?
We use both currency exchange and free exchange currency . if we want to wait for receiving currency exchange the progress will take about 1year and producers dont have the permission to depo their products therefore we have to use free exchange currency untill the exchange currency is ready for us .
Why did you imported tissue in the first place why not producing it ?
Iran in its current condition cant make tissie with both high quallity and low price and we know that except the three respective and good brands of “ harir,latif,nozohur “ there are no other companies who work in this field . it needs huge investments and hardwares and components which the boycotts made it very very hard to come by and foreign producers wont sell us the basic components because the technology of making tissue and its field is held by usa and europe .
What should government do to help producers make tissue in iran ?
Facilitation is the first step in this field . laws and rules must be faciliated and refined , governmental helps must be given to producers by the private companies and banks must support the producers more . weakness of the relationship between banks and producers must be improved , it makes things harder for producers because the profits are low and it wont be enough for them with the high intrests of banks which are 28 to 38 percent .
What about the rivalry between you and other brands ?
Well the market is so big that we colleague companies dont have much of rivalry .
Customers choose whats best for their intrests and us and other importer companies always keep our customers for ourselves . the extent of market makes things more profitable for the producer rather than the importer .
What does the word “management” mean in your profession ?
The best means of management in my opinion is to organize and make things symphinic between internal and external resources . manager must be good at those in the first place and then comes intelligence and accuracy , he must be able to risk some times aswell . the worldwide market specially in iran is very unstable and makes all the managers and ceos in pinch and everyone who lack those ingradients will fail.
What will you do if the boycotts and pressure keep on going ?
Our company will do its job untill its last and we wont stop , we always look for other ways and we know theres always a key for every lock .
What does it mean to make brands in your profession and what needs to be done to achieve it ?
A brand is something more than a name or a logo . the first condition is to make high quallity things shorter time to meet customer’s needs . like tissue before it was known as “clinex” and detergents were known as “tide “ but this remaining name showed the quallity at the time . there are lots of problems in the way of making new brand law and people and .. maybe if society had its potential producers could do better at introducing themselves to people . economical conditions , culture and diffrent types of people in the society keep producers away from focusing on quallity alone , some of the users looking for better quallity some others looking for price , some other looking for its looks and its packaging and coloring ...
Clinex and Tide both were produced and sold when there was no other brands maybe that and its quallity was the key of succession for those products .
At this rate making new brands is a little harder but its possible to find a point between good quallity and price and good looks so everyone would be happy ofcouce thats a key .
How important is advertising in your career ?
Advitising is main ingredient for every type of bussiness ofcouce the advertiser is quite important too . our job is imporing tissue basic goods and our customers are producers not public therefore advertising in public places and tv and else doesnt suit for our type of work , instead we are present in professional places and well everything related to our job .
When did most important offer , criticism and compliment happen and what about its effect on your work ?
First that we used to import goods from india , customers would complain that weight of merchandise was more than our deal and that bothered them .
When we started to import from china gm of the products satisfied our customers and that problem was completely solved . also about fluff pulp we have been told because iran’s machines were old and climate being dry so the fluff pulp package needed to be more soppy and so we asked producers and solved that problem as well . about compliments the famous “god bless ” from our customers has always been the best encouragement for us .
Any words to our readers on paperandwood community ?
I hope that every and each company in this field to be friends and dont see eachother as rivals and dont wish to terminate eachother because the world is large enough and god is kind and thers plenty for everyone .
Interview by: sepideh dabiry / Avand n1
Rights reserved : paperandwood.com
Translation : Peen.ir