Kiwi tech consortium wins $6.5m contract

Photo / Bay of Plenty Times

As the Black Caps took a hammering during last month's tour of Bangladesh, a New Zealand company was preparing to announce a big win for Kiwi business in the same country.

Wellington-based Abbey Systems says it is has secured a contract, worth $6.5 million, for a consortium of New Zealand tech firms to upgrade 34 electricity substations in the South Asian nation.

The company develops and manufactures supervisory control and data acquisition systems - used to manage infrastructure such as dams and power plants - which will be installed in the substations located around the coastal city of Chittagong.

Other New Zealand firms involved in the Bangladesh project are Tait Electronics, Innovative Energies, Energy Intellect, Enclosure Technology and Facility Management Systems.

"It's a sort of Kiwi consortium that's doing the whole job," said Abbey Systems founder and managing director Lester Abbey. He said the contract was signed with the Bangladesh Power Development Board, a government department.

The project was being funded by the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development, which provides financial and technical assistance to developing nations.

Abbey said the fund had received tenders from Chinese firms for substation upgrades but had favoured the New Zealand consortium as it considered this country a low risk for corruption.

"They don't want to spend all their aid money just to have it go into somebody's pocket," he said.

Abbey said the project would be completed within three years.

Tait Electronics spokesperson Gareth Richards said the Christchurch-based manufacturer had "enjoyed a lot of success" in Bangladesh, including supplying portable radios to the national police force.

The latest deal would see Tait's data radios, which monitor the infrastructure and send information back to a central point, installed in the upgraded substations, he said.