This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on October 12, 2015.

KUALA LUMPUR: Environmental engineering consultancy firm Progressive Impact Corp Bhd is bidding for a 15-year environmental monitoring concession contract from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, and it stands ready to adopt the technology using a pollutant measurement of PM2.5 for Air Pollutant Index (API) readings.

Progressive Impact group chief executive officer Johar Yusof said the company had submitted a comprehensive proposal and the government is in the midst of evaluating the bidders. “We expect the results by the end of the year,” he told The Edge Financial Daily after Progressive Impact’s extraordinary general meeting last week.

“We have the PM2.5 technology. It is one of the latest technologies that we would like to offer to the government. This is one of the [competitive] advantages we have,” he said. However, he declined to disclose the value of the concession and the identity of the other bidders.

Johar pointed out Progressive Impact has a competitive edge as it is the agent of US-based Met One Instruments Inc, whose technology and products are also used by Singapore for continuous PM2.5 monitoring. PM2.5 is deemed a better measurement.

“We are the agent for Met One technology. If others want to buy, they have to buy from us,” Johar added.

Currently, Malaysia has a system that captures particulates of 10 micrometres or PM10, compared with the finer measure of PM2.5 used in Singapore. It was reported that Malaysia will implement an API monitoring system using a pollutant measurement of PM2.5 by 2017. The government was earlier criticised for not adopting the latest technology .

Johar said the concession is similar to its previous 20-year air and water pollution monitoring concession with the government.

Progressive Impact signed a concession agreement with the government in 1995. The concession was for the company to monitor air and water quality at 60 stations nationwide. Under the original concession agreement, the government had the option to renew the contract annually, for the next five years when the concession, worth RM24 million per year, ended in April 2015.

The government earlier extended the concession agreement by one year to April 13, 2016, after renegotiating the contract for a lower value of RM22 million per year. Besides providing environmental consultancy and monitoring services, Progressive Impact is also involved in laboratory testing and a waste management business.

For the second quarter ended June 30, the environmental consulting and engineering segment contributed 45% of the group’s revenue while the laboratory testing segment contributed 54%.

Johar said the company plans to bring its three new technologies to markets abroad including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

“We are already in Saudi Arabia, in primary health services projects. We hope to bring environmental monitoring services there,” he added.

The new technologies are predictive emissions monitoring system, hybrid waste water and wave glider.

For the six months ended June 30, Progressive Impact recorded a net profit of RM4.95 million, an increase of 77.42% from RM2.79 million previously. As at June 30, Progressive Impact had cash of RM22.77 million and RM4.2 million of short-term borrowings.

Progressive Impact closed 0.5 sen or 2.5% higher at 20.5 sen last Friday, for a market capitalisation of RM134.89 million.