Vietnam’s new regulations on use of state funding for making purchases

Specifying purchasing contents

According to Circular No. 58/2016/TT-BTC of the Ministry of Finance of Vietnam, purchasing contents include:

- Purchases of working equipment under regulations by Prime Minister on standards and limits on working equipment of agencies, and officials and public employees;

- Purchases of machinery and equipment serving professional operation, assurance of occupational safety, fire fighting and prevention;

- Purchases of raw materials, fuels, gasoline, oil, chemicals, herbal ingredients, in-vitro diagnostic reagents, materials, consumables, tools and devices for ensuring regular operations;

- Purchases of professional outfits, clothing serving sector/field special activities as regulated (such as scrubs, patient apparel, prison uniform and other special clothes of other sectors), personal protective equipment (including payment for materials, design and tailoring services);

- Purchases of IT products: machines, equipment, accessories, software, and other IT products and services, including installation, test run, warranty (if any) of IT projects funded by government budget according to government’s regulations on management of IT applications with non-business capital in compliance with the Government’s regulations on management of investment in application of information technology with funds from state budget;

- Printing products, documents, forms, publications, regulated records, stamps; cultural articles, books, videos, and products and services for propagating, popularizing and serving professional tasks;

- Non-consultant services consist of: Lease of services of maintaining and repairing machines, equipment, working facilities, means of transport; regular repairing of houses or construction works which are not in investment projects on basic infrastructure construction; services of leasing office building, shelters, official vehicles and industrial hygiene vehicles; waste treatment services; ornamental plants and flower garden care services; transmission line leasing services; insurance services; price appraisal services (if any); power, water and fixed telephone services; services of training and organizing seminars and conferences, other non-consultant services;

- Consulting services consist of: Technology consulting services, consulting services for preparing, analyzing and appraising bids and other consulting services employed during the purchase for the purpose of maintaining regular operations of agencies;

- Industrial property rights, intellectual property rights (if any);

- Other assets, goods, consulting services and non-consulting services purchased for the purpose of maintaining regular operations of agencies.

Supplementing 02 cases where state funding shall not be used for making purchases

In addition to the 02 cases where state funding shall not be used for making purchases specified previously (including purchase of materials and equipment for investment projects and purchase of specialized equipments and facilities for national defense and security), Circular No. 58/2016/TT-BTC supplements the following 02 cases:

- Purchase of assets, goods and services made in foreign countries for serving regular operations of Vietnamese agencies in such foreign countries;

- If the purchase of assets, goods and services in purchasing contents belongs to the national concentrated purchase list and the concentrated purchase list of ministries, regulatory bodies and local governments, regulations of the Law on bidding, Decree No. 63/2014/ND-CP and their instructional documents shall apply.

The maximum selling price of a set of bidding documents shall not exceed VND 2,000,000

- Revenues from selling bidding documents and request for proposals: Based on the scale and nature of the procurement, the procuring agency shall decide the selling price of a set of bidding documents and the same of request for proposals (including tax) for domestic bidding providing that the maximum selling price of a set of bidding documents and request for proposals shall, respectively, not exceed VND 2,000,000 (two million dongs) and VND 1,000,000 (one million dongs). In case of international bidding, the selling price shall apply to international rules on bidding.

- If the contractor makes complaint about the contractor selection result, the procuring agency shall require such contractor to make payment for covering expenditure for settling such complaint. The collection rate is equal to 0.02% of the bid of the contractor who files the complaint provided that it must be from VND 1,000,000 (one million dongs) to VND 50,000,000 (fifty million dongs). Thus, compared to the previous regulation where the fee increased by 0.01% (the previous regulation stated a fee of 0.01% of the bidding price for bidders with recommendations), the minimum fee has now been reduced to only VND 1,000,000.

- Revenues from bid security as prescribed in Article 11 of the Law on bidding, and revenues from contract performance security as prescribed in Article 66 of the Law on bidding.

>> CLICK HERE TO READ THIS ARTICLE IN VIETNAMESE