| Open | 106.00 |
| High | 107.50 |
| Low | 103.56 |
| Mkt cap | 43.39B |
| P/E ratio | 131.98 |
| Div yield | 0.095% |
| Prev close | 109.97 |
| 52-wk high | 118.86 |
| 52-wk low | 54.32 |
Web results
The BGI test kits that Australia has acquired may well be of doubtful quality. Nevertheless Australians have been told that they are lucky that BGI has agreed to supply them; the kits may have gone elsewhere for a better price if not for a special deal that Twiggy Forrest secured for Australia on the strength of his relationship with China's BGI:
Mr Forrest said he was able to secure the kits due to his Fortescue Metals mining operation’s close relationship with China is one of Australia’s biggest buyers of minerals.
“We set aside $320 million to assist Australia any way we could,” Mr Forrest said.
“This was a business to business relationship, where capital was acquired immediately, deployed immediately and over time will be repaid by the Commonwealth.”
The Australian taxpayer will eventually pay AUD 320 Million (or more, if interest is charged, and adjustments are made for inflation). According to Forrest these kits were almost diverted to some other country. That may well be true, but compare the Australian deal to the deal between BGI and the Government Of Saudi Arabia which was announced at about the same time as the Australian Twiggy-Hunt deal (see report below). At USD 265 Million or AUD 405 Million at the exchange rate at time of wriitng, the Saudi deal is just 25% more than the AUD320 Million sale to Australia.
Note that the Saudi deal includes six labs, and is subject to progress payments.Global Times, the Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece has been happy to report that the Saudi deal is equivalent to 67.05 percent of BGI's last annual audited revenue.
Given the Global Times estimate the Australian deal is equal to approximately 60% of BGI's last audited annual revenue.This deal requires the immediate scrutiny of the Australian National Audit Office.
TO BE READ WTH
NEW YORK – BGI Genomics said on Monday it has inked an agreement with Saudi Arabia's National Unified Procurement Company to establish emergency COVID-19 testing laboratories.
Under the terms of the agreement, BGI will establish six so-called Huo-Yan "Fire Eye" laboratories in Saudi Arabia and will provide RT-PCR detection kits for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, as well as a total laboratory solution.
The agreement has a total value of SAR 995 million (about $264.6 million), according to a statement from Saudi Arabia's King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre. The contract is expected to provide for about 9 million COVID-19 testing kits overall, with about 50,000 tests per day as well as comprehensive community testing, the centre said. The agreement also calls for BGI to provide genetic analyses of an undisclosed number of samples in Saudi Arabia and an analysis of community immunity based on 1 million samples.
In a statement, BGI said the new lab infrastructure would provide a five-fold increase to Saudi Arabia's testing capacity and could test 30 percent of the country's approximately 33 million people within the next eight months.
BGI established the first Huo-Yan lab in early February in Wuhan, China, the first epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, in collaboration with the Wuhan municipal government, Wuhan East Lake High-Tech Development Zone, CCCC Second Harbor Engineering Company, and Shanghai Nori Laboratory Equipment. That emergency testing lab came equipped with MGI sequencers and a dozen automated nucleic acid extraction platforms. The lab, which BGI said it built in just five days, was originally designed to test 10,000 samples per day. BGI has built similar labs in 10 other Chinese cities as well as in the United Arab Emirates, Brunei, and Serbia.
BGI said it will also deploy the Huo-Yan Air Laboratory, a new rapid solution to quickly establish a BSL-2 safety level lab for SARS-CoV-2 detection, which has a daily testing capacity of 10,000 samples.
BGI's PCR-based COVID-19 tests have garnered CE Marking and US Food and Drug Administration Emergency Use Authorization.
Saudi Arabia inks $265 million deal on test kits, labs with China’s BGISource:Global Times Published: 2020/4/27 21:33:40
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A Chinese company will provide Saudi Arabia with 9 million coronavirus testing kits and six test laboratories, based on a $265 million deal signed on Sunday, greatly boosting local coronavirus testing capacity to 50,000 people per day.
The Saudi government's decision to procure Huo-yan Laboratories - COVID-19 testing labs developed by Chinese genomics giant BGI - aims to provide tests for 30 percent of the nation's population within eight months, according to a statement BGI sent to the Global Times on Monday.
Based on the contract signed between Saudi Arabia's National Unified Procurement Company (NUPCO) and BGI HEALTH (HK) Co, the Saudi negotiating and purchasing company must pay $124.64 million initially and the rest according to the progress of the project.
When the contract is fulfilled, NUPCO will become one of the major customers of BGI in 2020, the company said. The $265 million deal is equivalent to 67.05 percent of BGI's last annual audited revenue.
"Huo-yan Laboratories played a significant role in Wuhan's fight against the coronavirus and have been proven effective," founder and CEO of BGI Wang Jian said, adding that the company is willing to share its successful experience in Wuhan with its friends in Saudi Arabia.
The laboratories have been adopted by at least 10 overseas countries thus far.
The six large laboratories in Saudi Arabia will include a mobile laboratory with a capacity of 10,000 tests daily.
In addition, BGI will send 500 specialist technicians and medical experts to test the equipment and train local medical staff, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
Such cooperation will support Saudi Arabia's coronavirus prevention and control efforts and solidify long-term friendly relations between Saudi Arabia and China, said Abdullah Al-Rabeeah, general supervisor of the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported.
Chinese Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chen Weiqing said during the contract signing ceremony that China and Saudi Arabia are "real friends and good partners" who help and support one another, and they have become a role model for international cooperation in the fight against the coronavirus.
According to the Saudi health authority on Sunday, the country has recorded 17,522 coronavirus cases, including 139 deaths.
Due to the holy month of Ramadan, which starts on Thursday, Saudi Arabia has relaxed curfew rules in some parts of the country from Sunday onwards, but kept a 24-hour curfew in Mecca, state news agency SPA reported.
In 2019, the Saudi General Authority for Statistics said about 2.5 million people took part in the Hajj, which all Muslims must perform at least once in their lives if able.
In order to support Saudi Arabia's battle with the pandemic, China sent a team of eight medical experts from Northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region to the country.
The experts also took medical supplies donated by the regional government, including surgical masks, N95 masks, protective suits, nucleic acid testing kits and infrared thermometers.
China's BGI to help build two COVID-19 testing labs in Serbia
2020/4/9 17:28:40
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