LAISON’s annual letter to global partners

February 11, 2022 Editor

Dear LAISON Global Clients and Partners,

First of all, we would like to thank you once again for your support rendered to LAISON in 2021, which is really a difficult year because of COVID-19. Almost all of us have been affected by the pandemic, but we have also seen tremendous efforts to fight COVID-19 around the world, in order to protect our families and friends. We believe that the general world human populace will eventually use vaccines and specific drugs to defeat the virus, just like we did before.

The epidemic has changed many things, and we realize that no matter how advanced the science is, we still need to respect nature. Human behavior, especially over-exploitation of natural resources, will have an impact on nature. We believe human technology should be used to improve the environment rather than destroy it.

As a metering innovation company, we are thinking deeply about how to help water companies deal with operational challenges, especially under the current situation. We understand that the main problems faced by water companies are to do with limited infrastructure, leading to high non-income levels, and continuous insufficient funding that makes it difficult to improve water distribution services. We also realize that due to COVID-19, water companies’ cash flow has worsened in 2021.

Therefore, we believe that if we want to change the status quo, this is a difficult task, but it is not impossible.

Water companies shall focus on improving the Water Service, Billing efficiency and reasonable Financing Program together instead of only changing one aspect. Some water companies are looking for funds from the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, European Investment Bank, or Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for a single water production or distribution project, but due to limited billing and collection rate, it cannot obtain a reasonable return on investment. Some water companies have imported high-accuracy smart water meters, but still do not have digital payment platforms, and some of them are facing high arrears issue and don’t have a good solution.

These existing problems make LAISON more clear about our mission.

LAISON shall provide water companies with digital operation solutions (DOS), which usually include

1) reliable and low-cost smart prepaid water meters.

2) digital payment platforms e.g. LAPIS integrated with local mobile payment and e-bank systems and billing systems.

3) the SaaS remote meter reading platform which supports installment payments, which may reduce the initial investment. Water companies can repay on a monthly basis for two to three years and recover it through unpaid historical arrears.

On the bright side, we are very happy to see many water companies from Nigeria, Cameroon, Togo, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, etc. in 2021 that have adopted LAISON STS prepaid smart water meter with digital payment platform and LAPIS remote meter reading SaaS platform, especially in HCWW Egypt, EPAL Angola, DUWASA Tanzania, etc., who have planned to promote digital operation technology throughout the region. Therefore, we sincerely believe that the performance of water companies will gradually improve, and LAISON will always be a reliable partner for innovation.

Wish 2022 is a Better Year!

Sincerely Yours

Mr. Raymond Zheng

Managing Director, Co-Founder

Website: www.laisongroup.com