Government is about to outsource the role of selling Bermuda as an e-business jurisdiction.

The e-business marketing contract is understood to be worth up to about $750,000 per year.

Two parties have been short listed for the contract; one is local advertising agency AAC Saatchi & Saatchi and the other is a consortium made up of local agencies Troncossi Public Relations and Aardvark together with some specialist e-business public relations agencies in London and New York.

Liz Tee of Troncossi said that the contract will require a strong public relations component as well as designing advertising campaigns, booking advertising space and making recommendations as to where ads should run.

Government e-commerce consultant, Nigel Hickson said that in the past, the e-commerce ministry had been inundated with approaches from high profile publications such as Forbes and the Economist wishing to sell advertising space. "Now it's time to put it in the hands of professionals."

Rhona Emmerson at AAC, the other agency short listed for the contract said that AAC was delighted to have made the second cut.

"It's a tremendously exciting area and one where we feel we have already established a good reputation and experience.

"E-business is not a product you can sell, it's an evolution of the way we do business globally. It's a given that most offshore jurisdictions have the infrastructure such as facilities for hosting, but Bermuda can also back that up with the intellectual capital of some of the world's leading e-business companies."

Mr. Hickson said he expected to announce the conclusion of the tender process in a matter of weeks.