Proposal for new regulations on ensuring competition in bidding

The draft clearly stipulates the guarantee of competition in bidding. Accordingly, bidders participating in bidding for construction, goods procurement, and non-consulting packages must be legally and financially independent from the following parties:

The contractor provides consulting services for that bid package, including: preparation, review, appraisal of technical design, construction drawing design, cost estimate, overall technical design (Front - End Engineering Design - FEED design); price appraisal; contract performance supervision, inspection; preparation, appraisal of pre-qualification documents, bidding documents; evaluation of pre-qualification documents, bidding documents; appraisal of pre-qualification results, contractor selection results; consulting services directly related to the bid package including project management consulting, contract management, other consulting.

Contractors participating in bidding for consulting packages must be legally and financially independent from the following parties: Contractors providing consulting services for that package, including: preparing documents for requesting interest, bidding documents; evaluating documents for requesting interest, bidding documents; appraising results of requesting interest, results of contractor selection; consulting services directly related to the package, including project management consulting, contract management and other consulting.

Contractors participating in EPC, EP, EC packages must be legally and financially independent from the following parties: Contractors who prepare, review, and design FEED; Contractors who prepare and review feasibility study reports in cases where FEED designs are not prepared; Contractors who prepare and review technical economic reports in cases where feasibility study reports and FEED designs are not prepared in accordance with the provisions of the law on construction; Contractors who provide project management consulting, supervision consulting, inspection consulting, and contract management consulting services of the investor, the bidding party, or are hired by the investor or the bidding party.

The contractor participating in the turnkey package must be legally and financially independent from: The contractor preparing and reviewing the pre-feasibility study report; The project management consultant, supervision consultant, inspection consultant, contract management consultant of the investor, the bidding party or hired by the investor, the bidding party; The consulting contractor preparing and reviewing the pre-qualification documents, bidding documents; The consulting contractor evaluating the pre-qualification documents, bidding documents; The consulting contractor evaluating the contractor selection results; Other consulting contractors directly participating in the contractor selection process...

Preferential treatment for goods of Vietnamese origin

According to the draft, the calculation of incentives for goods of Vietnamese origin with a domestic production cost percentage of less than 50% and no goods with domestic production cost of 50% or more is as follows:

In case of applying the lowest price method, goods not eligible for incentives must add an amount equal to 7.5% of the bid price after error correction, deviation adjustment, minus the discount value (if any) of that goods to the bid price after error correction, deviation adjustment, minus the discount value (if any) of the bidder for comparison and ranking;

In case of applying the evaluation price method, goods not eligible for incentives must add an amount equal to 7.5% of the bid price after error correction, deviation adjustment, minus the discount value (if any) of that goods to the bid price after error correction, deviation adjustment, minus the discount value (if any) of the bidder for comparison and ranking;

In case of applying the combined method of technique and price, preferential goods will have preferential points added to the total score according to the following formula:

Preferential score = 7.5% x (preferential goods price/bid price after error correction, deviation adjustment minus discount value) x total score

In which: Preferential goods price is the bid price after error correction, deviation adjustment, minus the discount value (if any) of the goods eligible for incentives;

Bidders offering goods of Vietnamese origin with a domestic production cost ratio of less than 50% and the production facility has 50% or more of employees with labor contracts with a contract performance period of 3 months or more, and the contract is still valid at the time of bidding, including people with disabilities, war invalids, and ethnic minorities, then for points a and b, they will enjoy a preferential coefficient of 10% instead of a preferential coefficient of 7.5%, and for point c, they will enjoy a preferential coefficient of 10% instead of a preferential coefficient of 7.5%.

Costs in the contractor selection process

The draft proposes the costs of preparing and appraising the documents as follows: The cost of preparing the request for expression of interest and the request for pre-qualification documents is calculated at 0.1% of the bid package price, but the minimum is VND 2 million and the maximum is VND 30 million; The cost of preparing the invitation for bid and the request for proposal is calculated at 0.2% of the bid package price, but the minimum is VND 3 million and the maximum is VND 60 million; The cost of appraising the invitation for bid and the request for proposal is calculated at 0.1% of the bid package price, but the minimum is VND 2 million and the maximum is VND 60 million.

The cost of evaluating the results of contractor selection, including the case where no contractor is selected, is calculated at 0.1% of the bid package price, but is at least 3 million VND and at most 60 million VND.

For bid packages with similar content belonging to the same investor or project, procurement estimate, bid packages that require re-organization of contractor selection, the costs of: preparing and appraising the invitation for interest, invitation for pre-qualification documents; preparing and appraising the invitation for bid, request documents are calculated at a maximum of 50% of the prescribed cost level.

According to the draft, the cost for the Advisory Council to resolve the contractor's recommendations on the results of contractor selection is calculated as a percentage of the bid price of the contractor with the recommendation as follows: Bid price under 50 billion VND, rate 0.04% but minimum 5 million VND; Bid price from 50 billion VND to under 100 billion VND, rate 0.035% but minimum 20 million VND; Bid price from 100 billion VND to under 200 billion VND, rate 0.025% but minimum 35 million VND; Bid price from 200 billion VND or more, rate 0.02% but minimum 50 million VND and maximum 80 million VND.

Regarding the refund of petition settlement costs: In case the petition of the contractor is concluded to be correct, the relevant organizations and individuals are responsible for paying the petitioning contractor an amount equal to the petition settlement costs that the petitioning contractor has paid.

In case the contractor's proposal is concluded to be incorrect, the contractor will not be reimbursed for the cost of resolving the proposal.

Costs in selecting contractors on the National Bidding Network System include: Costs of maintaining the contractor's name and capacity profile on the National Bidding Network System; Costs of submitting bidding documents; Costs of submitting proposal documents; Costs of winning contractors; Costs of signing and using electronic contracts.

For international bidding, based on the scale and nature of the bidding package, the investor decides the amount of money the bidder must pay to purchase the electronic copy of the bidding documents when submitting the bid.

The Ministry of Planning and Investment shall provide detailed regulations on the costs of publicizing information for contractor selection on the Bidding Newspaper and the costs of contractor selection on the National Bidding Network. The Ministry of Finance shall provide guidance on the management and use of costs in the contractor selection process.

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