Transas, Primar Sign Agreement

Transas Ltd., the exclusive distributor of Russian ENCs, has concluded an agreement with PRIMAR, the official regional electronic navigation chart (ENC) coordinating center. The contract, which was signed on January 1, 2001, by Evgeny Komrakov, Director General of Transas's office in Russia, and Asbjørn Kyrkjeeide, General Manager of PRIMAR, brings the number of nations offering their ENCs through PRIMAR to 12. Commenting, Mr. Kyrkjeeide said the agreement marked a major step forward for the PRIMAR service and its operations in general, and reflected the trend towards growing cooperation between the centre and the worldwide maritime community. The Russian Hydrographic Office plans to produce some 400 ENC files of the Baltic, Barents and Black Seas, during 2001. A steady stream of Russian ENCs is expected to become available through the PRIMAR Official ENC Service within the year 2001, once the comprehensive production and validation stages are successfully completed. According to Evgeny Komrakov of Transas, his company is proud of being able to promote charts produced by the Russian HO onto the international market. Captain Komrakov believes that the high quality of Russian ENCs will provide a significant contribution to increasing the safety of navigation in Russia's waters. "With recent successes on which to build, we'll continue to focus more and more attention in 2001 on expanding the coverage available in our service and exploring new and innovative ways of cooperating with other ENC service providers such as Transas," says PRIMAR operations manager Phil Wainwright.