Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Public Service Fred Mitchell (right) and James Ram, president of Indusa Global, LLC, shake hands after signing contracts for the provision of e-passports, biometric visas, work permits and other identity documents, as well as a border control management system. In the background is Ministry of Foreign Affairs Protocol Officer Terry Archer.

For the project, Indusa has partnered with the Malaysian global security solution provider, Iris Berhad, and the British company, De La Rue, a long-time provider of the Bahamian passport and the world's largest security provider and papermaker.

Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Public Service, Fred Mitchell,  said that the first set of new passports are expected to be issued by September 2007, with the visas expected to be available earlier. The new passports will be machine-readable with chip-based biometric authentication for fingerprints, facial characteristics and signature capture, he added.