(Yicai Global) May 8 -- A consortium of China Bester Group Telecom and a Saudi firm recently secured an about SAR99 million (USD26.4 million) service contract to install 1 million smart electric meters in Saudi Arabia, Bester said in an announcement yesterday that mightily boosted its shares today.

Bester’s Saudi Arabian subsidiary Raifah Contracting Company recently penned an agreement with Riyadh-based contractor Al Rajhi Electric & Lighting to install 1 million smart electric meters in the middle and eastern areas of the desert kingdom for state-run Saudi Electricity.

The smart electric meter project is the world’s largest single electric meter installation project and part and parcel of the oil rich Mideast nation’s ambitious agenda to build Neom, a futuristic international smart city with an intelligent power grid in its northwest corner by 2021. The massive undertaking foresees installation of 10 million smart electric meters at cost of USD2.52 billion throughout the kingdom.

Bester’s local unit will oversee the whole process from transport, installation and debugging of the meters, per the announcement, which added the contract is of three years’ anticipated duration.

Bester’s stock [SHA:603220] was up 5.07 percent to CNY21.15 (USD3) in mid-afternoon after falling off from a high of CNY22 in the morning on the announcement.

The Wuhan, Hubei-province-based company’s Raifah Contracting unit will be paid 97 percent of the value of the deal in the form of technical installation service charges, while Al Rajhi will receive the rest as contract support fees, per the announcement.

State Grid Corp. of China’s China Electric Power Equipment and Technology unit inked a USD1.1 billion general contract with Saudi Electricity Company in December to install 5 million smart electric meters and ancillary facilities pursuant to this blueprint to construct the ultra-modern metropolis along a currently bare stretch of the kingdom’s Red Sea coastline in Tabuk province.

Bester’s announcement made no mention of its smart electric meter suppliers. China’s Ningbo Sanxing Medical Electric was to provide State Grid Corp. of China with part of the 5 million electric meters for CNY302 million (USD43.5 million), the firm said in a statement earlier this year which, however, omitted references to specific quantities.

Editor: Ben Armour