HuaDa-ZhiBao and OTI win supply contract for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs e-passport chips

ISELIN, USA: On Track Innovations Ltd (OTI), a global leader in contactless microprocessor-based smart card solutions, for homeland security, payments, petroleum payments and other applications, announced that its Chinese partner HuaDa-ZhiBao Electronic Systems Ltd is part of the winning bid to supply the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' (MFA) electronic passport booklet, and will be responsible for the supply of IC modules to be used in such.

HuaDa-ZhiBao is OTI's Chinese local partner, providing a local Chinese product for the MFA program. HuaDa-ZhiBao and OTI have reached an overall profit sharing agreement in addition to product revenues. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs issues passports to diplomats and entry visas to China. The MFA issues about one (1) million passports annually. This award is in addition to the inspection equipment award reported last week.

China's MFA electronic passport is based on the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and ISO 14443 standards. Earlier this year, HuaDa-ZhiBao and OTI delivered initial quantities for this program, which successfully passed rigorous testing for product performance including security, durability, communications, personalization and more. The MFA is planning to start issuing electronic passport in 2010.

Oded Bashan, Chairman and CEO of OTI, said: "We are honored to be a part of the Chinese MFA electronic passport program. The cooperation with HuaDa-ZhiBao has proven to be successful, professional and positions us to provide best-in-class ID solutions to the Chinese government."

Bashan continued: "As we have indicated, in our view, the Chinese opportunity is comprised of a series of projects and initiatives which are governed by different governmental regulations and agencies. Each one of these initiatives is large, complex, sophisticated and involves the integration of multiple sub systems, and thus takes long time. In recent years OTI has been working with strong local partners in order to be able to establish local products which support the Chinese opportunity."