(Hong Kong, December 3, 2002) - Digi-Sign Certification Services Limited and E-business infrastructure provider Newtech Technology Company Limited signed a Memorandum of Understanding today to jointly provide a one-stop-shop service for companies looking to benefit from Virtual Private Network (VPN) technology.

Newtech provides total e-Business and IT infrastructure solutions from consultancy, design, implementation and system management for Datacom Solutions, Enterprise Solutions, e-Business Applications and Data Centre Infrastructure.

Digi-Sign Certification Services Limited is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tradelink. It is the first private Certification Authority recognised by the Hong Kong Government under the Electronic Transactions Ordinance. Branded ID-Cert, the digital certificates issued by Digi-Sign can serve to confirm the identity of users who access remote servers over public data or virtual private networks.

Under the agreement, Newtech will sell, market and promote Digi-Sign's products and services such as digital certificates to enable secure electronic transactions. The technology is designed to help corporations establish a more cost effective and highly secure communications channel to support their critical business applications.

Mr Patrick Chung, CEO of Digi-Sign, said:" The complete integration of Digi-Sign's certificates into proven VPN technology is suitable for corporations who require secure communications between their headquarters and branches, or between customers and suppliers."

Mr Charles Lee, Managing Director of Newtech, pointed out that more companies are replacing their existing telecommunications infrastructure with VPN technology by implementing secure internet protocol (IP) tunnels between their corporate sites as well as to business partners and remote users. He said, "Virtual Private Network allows corporations to dramatically reduce their operating and telecommunication costs while increasing productivity by using the high performance, readily available technology. It provides great value to many industries such as banking and finance, manufacturing, distribution and government."

Newtech uses VPN appliances developed by NetScreen, the market leader in Firewall, VPN and traffic management appliances from the US. It provides a wide scope of products, from high-performance security systems of 5000 series for Telco to 5 series entry level. Easy deployment of advanced encryption and tunnelling permits companies to establish end-to-end private network connections over the internet.