FPT won a record high IT contract of 33.6 million USD in Bangladesh

After an intensive bidding process, FPT Information Systems has succeeded against five competitors from developed countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Canada, China and Luxembourg, to be officially chosen to implement a project entitled “Provision, deployment and maintenance of the Integrated VAT Administration System” (IVAS) by the Tax Department of Bangladesh. With a total value of 33.6 million USD, this is the biggest turnkey IT contract in the history of Bangladesh. The project value is equivalent to 1/10 of the total trade turnover between Vietnam and Bangladesh during the first six months of 2015 (310 million USD). IVAS is expected to create new opportunities to bring Vietnamese expertise into the South Asian market.

On September 16, the Contract signing ceremony between FPT IS and Tax Department of Bangladesh was held in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Present at the ceremony were Bangladesh’s Deputy Minister of Ministry of Finance, the National Board of Revenue (NBR) Chairman and representatives from the World Bank.

The IVAS project is scheduled to be completed within 12 months, followed by a with a five-year maintenance service. FPT IS will be responsible for the end to end VAT software and infrastructure solutions, as well as the managed services for more than 320 local tax authorities within Bangladesh. Prior to IVAS, Bangladesh experienced many challenges with the process of tax collection as well as the creation of statistics and reporting for the management of indirect taxes, particularly VAT. The implementation of IVAS is expected to facilitate the management of indirect taxes from the registration and declaration, to collection, inspection and supervision, and also offer useful tools to support reporting, analysis and decision making for the NBR. In addition, with the execution of new VAT law in 2016, the Government of Bangladesh also expects IVAS to assist its strategy to raise the VAT collection amount from 4.5 billion USD in 2014  (accounting for 3,7% GDP) to 8 billion USD by 2020 (accounting for 4,5% GDP).

FPT IS Chairman Mr. Do Cao Bao said: “Following a series of successful bids including the Financial Management Information System and the Treasury System for the Royal Government of Cambodia; the Case Management System for the Philippines Government; the Integrated Tax Administration System for Bangladesh National Board of Revenue, and the Core Banking Systems for Banks of Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, and most recently, the IVAS project, FPT IS has confirmed the capabilities of Vietnamese contractors for the implementation of large-scale integrated systems in overseas marketplaces.  This is not only a great victory for FPT IS, but also for the Vietnam’s IT industry, opening up Vietnam to promising cooperation opportunities with Bangladesh and other countries in South Asia, regardless of the strong competition from the IT giant – India. With consecutive global contract signings in recent times, FPT has pioneered the export of the Vietnam IT industry’s application software solutions and services to foreign markets”.

While sharing the secrets behind the win of this historical contract, Mr. Do Cao Bao emphasized: “The great achievement of IVAS today is the result of nearly 20 years of close cooperation with the Vietnam Ministry of Finance and the General Department of Taxation, to research and develop advanced and modern e-financial systems to international standards. Without the positive support of the Ministry of Finance and the Vietnam General Department of Taxation, we could not have won three international public finance contracts. We also highly appreciate the assistance of our partners with solution consultancy, business consultancy and integration”.

At the event, NBR Chairman Mr. Md Nojibur Rahman, said that: “This is the flagship of NBR and it must be successful. We are optimistic that together with FPT and the consultants, we’ll full fill the implementation fluently. This project, once implement successfully will increase the revenue of Bangladesh.”