China has a special definition of bidding, and bidding activities are bound by the Bidding Law and its implementing regulations. For electronic bidding, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Supervision, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Railways, the Ministry of Water Resources and the Ministry of Commerce jointly formulated the Measures for Electronic Bidding and its annex, Technical Specifications for Bidding Systems.
The era of electronic bidding has arrived. As one of the main bodies of bidding activities, how should a bidding agency adjust its development direction and make a difference in the face of new things and changes in the industry? According to the relevant laws and regulations on tendering and bidding, this paper further understands and expounds the differences between electronic tendering and bidding procedures and traditional tendering and bidding procedures, analyzes the advantages and problems of electronic tendering and bidding, expounds its influence on bidding agencies, and puts forward some suggestions for the future development of bidding agencies.
First, the difference between electronic bidding procedure and traditional bidding procedure.
Article 2 of the Measures for Electronic Bidding stipulates that "electronic bidding activities refer to all or part of bidding transactions, public services and administrative supervision activities completed in the form of data messages relying on the electronic bidding system". Electronic bidding activities are still the same as traditional bidding methods in procedure, but the adoption of new technical means has also caused some changes accordingly.
(a) Whether all bidders should attend online bid opening on time.
Since the decryption steps of the bidding documents must be completed by the bidders themselves, Article 29 of the Measures for Electronic Bidding stipulates that "all bidders shall attend the online bid opening on time". Through the "Technical Specification for Electronic Bidding System", it is further required that the system should provide the function that the representatives attending the bid opening can remotely sign and report the bid opening through the network.
However, Article 35 of the Bidding Law stipulates that "the bid opening shall be presided over by the tenderer, and all bidders shall be invited to participate", that is, in the traditional bidding procedure, whether or not to participate in the bid opening is the right of bidders, and even if they do not participate, it will not affect the validity of their bids. Just because they are not present, they will be regarded as giving up their right to raise objections to the bid opening process automatically.
(2) The definitions of revocation of bid documents and withdrawal of bid documents are different.
Article 31 of the Measures for Electronic Bidding stipulates the different situations and handling principles of undeciphered bidding documents, that is, "if the bidding documents are not decrypted due to the bidder's reasons, the bidding documents shall be deemed to be revoked; If the bid documents are not decrypted due to reasons other than the bidder, it will be deemed that the bid documents have been withdrawn ... "
Article 35 of the Regulations for the Implementation of the Bidding Law stipulates that "a bidder shall notify the tenderer in writing before the deadline for submission of bid documents", and "if a bidder cancels his bid documents after the deadline for submission of bid documents, the tenderer may not return the bid bond", that is, the deadline for submission of bid documents is taken as the basis for distinguishing between cancellation and withdrawal. Electronic tendering and bidding activities are based on whether the bidder is human or not.
In the process of electronic bidding, the bidder may not be able to decrypt the bidding documents due to network congestion, power failure and other reasons other than the bidder's own. This situation is regarded as withdrawing its bid documents according to Article 31 of the above-mentioned electronic bidding method, that is, the bidder declares that he will not participate in bidding before the deadline for submitting bid documents in traditional bidding, and the bid bond will not be confiscated.
(3) The Measures for Electronic Tendering and Bidding stipulates that data messages should be used when signing contracts and announcing performance.
Article 36 of the Measures for Electronic Bidding stipulates: "A tenderer shall sign a contract with the winning bidder in the form of data message through the electronic bidding trading platform". Compared with the traditional bidding contract signing method, this means that the contract can be strongly supervised by the administrative department from the beginning of signing, which greatly reduces the appearance of "yin-yang contract".
Article 37 of the Measures for Electronic Tendering and Bidding stipulates: "Tenderers, winning bidders and other relevant entities are encouraged to submit and publish the performance information of the winning contract through the electronic tendering and bidding trading platform in time". The word "encourage" shows that this is not mandatory, but advocacy. Once it is fulfilled, it will form the whole process supervision of the contract.
(4) The Measures for Electronic Bidding stipulates that the information of bidders shall be subject to public supervision to prevent fraud.
Article 42 of the Measures for Electronic Tendering and Bidding stipulates: "Relevant departments of people's governments at all levels shall, in accordance with the Regulations on the Openness of Government Information in People's Republic of China (PRC) and other regulations, publish and allow downloading the following information on their websites in a timely manner: (3) Names and electronic certificate numbers of employees who have obtained these measures ... (5) Relevant information on industry and commerce, taxation, customs and finance. Open according to law. " The above content is the embodiment of the principles of openness, fairness, justice and honesty and credit. It is more difficult for suppliers to forge or alter qualification certificates, and it is also more difficult for bidders to exclude potential bidders with unreasonable conditions.