E-Passports
Korea Minting and Security Printing & ID Card Operating Corporation (KOMSCO) said that it has recently signed a contract to supply electronic passports to East Timor in partnership with a global firm Gemalto.
Under the contract, KOMSCO will export a total of 15,000 passports, which are high-tech electronic passports with polycarbonate technology applied to the data pages.
The agreement came as part of the cooperative relationship it had established with Gemalto when its CEO Kim Hwa-dong had visited the firm during the CARTES exhibition, an international exhibition devoted to smart cards and secure technologies, held in France in 2014.
The contract is more meaningful in that KOMSCO has paved the way for expansion of its international business in the future, as well as it has secured technologies to manufacture the next generation of electronic passports.
“We have expanded our business to global markets and diversified our products by winning the contract to export e-passports, which are cutting-edge ID products, to East Timor, as well as the deals to provide other traditional goods, including bank note paper for Indonesia, coins for a nation, and security printing inks for Iran and Canada,” said CEO Kim, adding, “We will achieve our goal of becoming the world’s fifth minting and security company earlier by targeting overseas markets in strategic and aggressive ways so as to successfully win the projects to supply and build up e-NID system for Kyrgyzstan, and provide Iran with ID card chipsets for all its citizens.”