What are the benefits of bidding for the North-South Expressway?

Notably, in this Resolution, the Government allows the Minister of Transport and competent persons to apply the form of designated bidding in 2022 and 2023 for consulting packages related to projects, packages serving the relocation of technical infrastructure, packages for compensation, site clearance and resettlement.

The Prime Minister decided to appoint contractors in 2022 and 2023 for construction packages of component projects, along with a requirement to save at least 5% of the estimated value of the package (excluding contingency costs) and other important packages (if necessary for consulting) related to the project, packages for technical infrastructure relocation, packages for compensation, site clearance and resettlement.

To ensure project progress, the Government Resolution also allows simultaneous implementation of procedures to shorten the implementation time of the following tasks: Appraisal and decision on approval of appraisal results of environmental impact assessment reports; examination and decision on compensation, support and resettlement policy framework; survey, preparation, appraisal and approval of investment projects; survey, preparation, appraisal and approval of technical designs, estimates and contractor selection; other related tasks to ensure project implementation progress.

The decision to appoint a contractor is based on the proposal of the Minister of Transport and the appraisal results of the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

A representative of the Ministry of Transport said that with the Government's permission, the appointment of contractors for consulting and construction packages will speed up the project implementation time by 3 months.

Specifically, for consulting packages, if open bidding is applied, it will usually take about 58-60 working days, while applying designated bidding only takes a maximum of 30 days for all stages such as: Approving the list of contractors, evaluating proposal documents, opening bids, evaluating the results of designated bidding, etc.

Similarly, for construction packages, domestic open bidding will go through 19 stages with a time of 76-80 working days, while designated bidding will only go through 11 stages and 41 working days.

Thus, after the competent authority approves the investment policy, the process of selecting contractors for consulting and construction packages in each phase is implemented to carry out the following tasks. The implementation of the main packages is an important "critical path" in project implementation, including: Consulting package for survey and investment project preparation; Consulting package for survey and preparation of technical design documents (for 3-step design) or Consulting package for survey and preparation of construction drawing design documents (for 2-step design); Construction package.

"When the competent authority allows the contractor to be appointed, the project implementation time will be shortened by about 3 months," said a representative of the Ministry of Transport.