Beijing Municipality, Invitation and Submission of Bids Regulations

Promulgated: September 6 2002
Effective: November 1 2002
Applicability: The Regulations apply to the invitation and submission of bids for construction projects, procurement of goods and services and other bid invitation and submission activities in the Beijing municipality (Article 2).

Main contents: The following construction projects, including their surveying, design, construction, supervision, and procurement of relevant equipment and materials, are subject to invitation for bids: infrastructure and public utilities; projects that are partially or wholly invested by State-owned funds or financed by the government; and projects that use loans or aid funds from international organizations or foreign governments (Article 4). No work unit or individual shall break a project into parts in order to avoid invitation for bids (Article 5).
Major State or municipal projects for which State-owned funds comprise more than half of the investment or funding are subject to public invitation for bids (Article 11). However, private invitation for bids may be approved when technical, resource, environmental or other factors limit the list of potential bidders to only a few parties (Article 11). If the bidding notice has not stated a maximum number of bidders, the bid inviting party may not reject the bid of a qualified bidder (Article 16). When there is a base bid price, the base bid price shall remain confidential; a base bid price is usually not set for government-invested or government-funded projects (Article 19). When less than three bids are made, the bid inviting party shall repeat the bid invitation according to law (Article 22).
Bid evaluation shall be performed by a bid evaluation committee composed of five or more individuals in an odd number randomly selected by the bid inviting part from a list of qualified personnel offered by the relevant department of the State Council, the municipal people's government or by the bid inviting agency (Article 26). The bid evaluation committee may evaluate bids based on the lowest price or make a consolidated evaluation of several factors. For infrastructure, public utilities and government-invested or government-funded projects, the consolidated factors method shall be used (Article 29). The bid winner may not transfer the project; it may, in accordance with the contract or with the bid inviting party's approval, contract out non-major or non-core elements of the project
(Article 39).
The municipality shall perform special auditing of bidding (such as verifying the legality of the bidding process) for key projects and projects involving the construction of the venues for the 29th Olympic Games (Article 43).
When, in breach of Article 23 of the Regulations, the bidder submits a price that is lower than cost causing the full implementation of the contract impossible, and the project is a government invested or funded project, the bidder shall be banned from bidding on government-invested or funded projects for three to five years (Article 50).
Related legislation: PRC Invitation and Submission of Bids Law, Aug 30 1999, CLP 1999 No.8 p34