Singapore to tender 480 mln USD worth of infocomm contracts

To further transform the public sector, the Singapore government will continue to invest in information communication and call 730 million Singapore dollars ( about 480 million U.S. dollars) worth of new infocomm tenders this financial year.

This was announced by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) on Thursday at the Industry Briefing 2007, " Business Opportunities for Infocomm in the Public Sector".

Attended by more than 700 participants, the annual briefing provided infocomm businesses with an early indication of government procurement plans.

The tenders for financial year 2007 from April 1 this year to March 31 next year were over and above the Standard ICT Operating Environment (SOE) tender for the public sector, the IDA said.

The value of the SOE tender is estimated to be worth up to 1.5 billion Singapore dollars (about 1 billion U.S. dollars).

In an effort to transform key economic sectors like government, tourism, hospitality and retail, the Singapore government plans to use infocomm to develop innovative solutions that will benefit the public.

One such project is the Digital Concierge, which represents Singapore's commitment to creating seamless and personalized services for visitors to the country.

Another innovative project to be called is IDA's Distributed Computer Forensic Investigation Infrastructure, which aims to enhance Singapore's current incident response and management processes.

When fully implemented, the system will allow government agencies to quickly investigate and manage potentially compromised systems from a central location within Singapore's network and take further remedial actions.

More than 340 tenders will be called in this financial year, according to the IDA.

The IDA also said that Singapore's local companies have benefited from the government's investment in infocomm.

In last financial year, they were awarded 63 percent of total infocomm contracts, while multi-national companies (MNCs) garnered 37 percent. For contracts worth about 500,000 Singapore dollars ( about 329,OOO U.S. dollars), local companies took the lion's share of 115 contracts, with 65 awarded to MNCs.

Source: Xinhua