(Yicai Global) July 7 -- Chinese telecoms service provider China Bester Group Telecom’s Saudi unit Raifah Contracting recently secured a contract worth SAR70 million (USD18.7 million) to install, test and maintain road surveillance equipment and related basic telecom devices for local clients in Saudi Arabia, the Wuhan-based parent said in a statement yesterday.

Bester’s shares [SHA:603220] rose 2.35 percent to close at CNY19 (USD2.70) at the lunch buzzer.

Raifah penned the project contracting agreement with Riyadh-headquartered telecoms and information technology service provider PrimeGate.

The unit will supply engineering materials, devices for construction and relevant interim supporting facilities to the project and also the workforce, subject to various guarantees, including the application for legal identities as workers, residency, transport and uniforms, the statement added, without further details.

The value of this deal makes up about 7.2 percent of the parent company’s audited business revenue for last year, the announcement further noted, adding it will positively influence the service provider’s operating performance and hone its competitiveness in the overseas market.

Bester, based in Wuhan, capital of central Hubei province, has been actively exploring overseas markets of late. Raifah won a contract worth SAR99 million to install 1 million smart electric meters throughout Saudi Arabia’s central and eastern regions as a cornerstone in the Gulf kingdom’s government’s planned construction of intelligent grids and the smart city of Neom a bare stretch of the kingdom’s Red Sea coastline in northwestern Tabuk province, by installing 10 million such meters all over the country.

Bester is a high and new technology communication network technology services provider whose business is mainly in communication network construction, integration of communication and information system, optimization and maintenance of communication network and communication network planning and design, according to its website.

Editor: Ben Armour