Recently, nine authorities, including the National Development and Reform Commission ("NDRC"), have jointly issued the Standard Tendering Documents for the Procurement of Equipment, Standard Tendering Documents for the Procurement of Materials, Standard Tendering Documents for Surveys, Standard Tendering Documents for Design and Standard Tendering Documents for Supervision Work(collectively the "Standard Documents"), effective from January 1, 2018.
The Standard Documents, applicable to projects involving such goods as equipment and materials or involving such services as the survey, design and supervision work that relate to the engineering construction and must be purchased through tendering procedures according to the law, comprise the tendering announcements (invitations for bid), must-know information for bidders, bid evaluation methods, contractual clauses and format thereof, format of bidding documents, and other major contents, and could be used as general texts for a wide variety of industries and sectors. In particular, it is stipulated that the must-know information for bidders, bid evaluation methods and general contractual clauses should be used without any change. Furthermore, for tendering, bidding and bid opening procedures, the Standard Documents are designed respectively according to requirements on conventional tendering and bidding in writing and electronic tendering and bidding, and relevant clauses are given identical serial numbers for bidders' selection and use.