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| Construction work on Ring Road 3 - Ho Chi Minh City__Photo: Cong Phong/VNA |
Effective as of July 1, omnibus Law 90/2025/QH15 revises several important laws concerning bidding, investment in the form of public-private partnership, customs, value-added tax, export and import duties, investment, public investment, and management and use of public assets. Notably, a number of new provisions on foreign contractors have been added, with the Government assigned to provide detailed guidance for their implementation.
In light of this, the Government on August 4 issued Decree 214/2025/ND-CP (Decree 214) detailing a number of articles of, and providing measures to implement, the Bidding Law regarding contractor selection. The decree not only guides the new provisions introduced under Law 90 but also incorporates additional provisions consistent with the revised ones. At the same time, it retains and refines provisions on bidding that have been proven effective in reality, while ensuring their consistency with the Bidding Law.
By simplifying procedures, shortening time frames, and accelerating the implementation of bidding packages and projects, Decree 214 is expected to further improve the legal framework on bidding, creating favorable conditions for project owners and bid solicitors to select contractors, particularly foreign contractors.
Contractor appointment
Notably, Decree 214 adds cases eligible for contractor appointment in order to fully concretize the guidelines of the Politburo, the National Assembly and the Government. These include cases in which contractor appointment is applicable to bidding packages subject to special professional or technical requirements or those in strategically important fields, and to special projects or tasks involving scientific research, technological development or innovation, and digital transformation.
Specifically, Article 21 adds detailed provisions on capacity and experience requirements for members of the appraisal team and the expert team in relation to bidding packages under science, technology and innovation projects. It states that for bidding packages under science, technology and innovation projects as specified in the law on science, technology and innovation; hi-tech projects defined in the law on high technology; or projects involving the application of new technology under the law on technology transfer, the project owners may decide on the selection of members of the expert team and the appraisal team, ensuring that they are capable of performing their assigned tasks. The members of the expert team and the appraisal team will not be required to meet the requirements of “possessing a bidding practice certificate” and “having at least three years’ work experience in legal, technical or financial affairs of the bidding package”, unless they are individual consultants or from a bidding consultancy organization.
In case specialized expert opinions are required, those experts are not compelled to possess a bidding practice certificate.
Decree 214 also raises the thresholds for applying the method of contractor appointment under Article 23.1.e of the Bidding Law. It says that the contractor appointment is applicable to bidding packages with a value not exceeding VND 500 million that are included in procurement estimates without forming a project; and consultancy service bidding packages with a value not exceeding VND 800 million under projects or non-consultancy service, goods supply, construction and installation or mixed bidding packages with a value not exceeding VND 2 billion.
The new regulation specifies the conditions for applying and procedures for conducting the contractor appointment. It states that contractor appointment processes include ordinary contractor appointment and fast-track contractor appointment. By the method of ordinary contractor appointment, it is not required to appraise dossiers of requirements and contractor appointment results. Instead, project owners are empowered to appraise such contents. At the same time, depending on the size, nature and specific conditions of bidding packages, project owners will specify in dossiers of requirements the percentage of savings in the proposed bid-winning price, serving as a basis for contractors to prepare dossiers of proposals and proceed with contract negotiation. For special cases of contractor appointment, the project owner may negotiate the contract with the contractor before finalizing and concluding the contract, without requiring the preparation of dossiers of requirements and dossiers of proposals, thereby simplifying the procedures.
With Article 29a added to the Bidding Law under Law 90 regarding the mechanism of order placement, Decree 214 (Articles 106 through 112) specifies goods and services eligible for order placement; funding sources for order placement; competence, conditions and procedures for order placement; prices of order placement; and inspection and supervision procedures.
Under the decree, the procedures for order placement are simplified to ensure ease of implementation as proposed by ministries, sectors and localities. The simplified procedures only require the preparation and approval of an order placement plan, and signing of an order placement contract or approval of an order placement decision. Additionally, the decree contains revised provisions on principles for selecting contractors to provide public products and services in line with Article 29b of the Bidding Law which is added under Law 90.
Article 29b sets out principles for applying contractor selection forms and assigns the Government to issue detailed guidance. Based on this, Decree 214 stipulates that for bidding packages eligible for application of the form of online quotation or online procurement, if project owners choose not to apply either of these forms, they may apply the form of open bidding or competitive offering.
Eligibility of foreign contractors in international bidding
Amending Article 5.1.i of the Bidding Law regarding eligibility of contractors, Law 90 states that in international bidding, a foreign contractor must form a joint-name entity with a domestic contractor or employ a domestic subcontractor, unless otherwise regulated by the Government.
Based on this, Articles 26, 37.4.a and 63 of the new decree further clarify that in international bidding, if unable to determine that no domestic contractor can participate in any part of a bidding package, the project owner may seek prior consultation through posting a notice, together with bidding documents, for at least five working days for inviting domestic contractors to participate in the bidding package, so that domestic contractors can register to perform one or several job(s) within their capacity.
Beyond the above deadline, if no domestic contractor makes registration, the foreign contractor will not be required to form a joint-name entity or employ a domestic subcontractor. In this case, the contractor will not have to meet the condition specified in Article 5.1.i of the Bidding Law.
Settlement of complaints
Law 90 abolishes Articles 90 thru 93 and revises Article 89 of the Bidding Law toward setting out only general principles for settlement of bidding-related complaints, while assigning the Government to provide in detail the conditions for settling complaints, settlement procedures, and the composition, responsibilities and activities of the complaint settlement council.
Therefore, with Decree 214, the Government additionally specifies conditions for considering and settling complaints, procedures for settlement of complaints arising during the contractor selection process, and the composition, responsibilities and activities of the complaint settlement council on the basis of taking over the provisions of Articles 90 thru 93 of the 2023 Bidding Law.
With the first process of complaint settlement, for matters arising before the announcement of contractor selection results, the contractor and the concerned agency/organization may file a complaint to the project owner or competent person. By the second process, after contractor selection results are announced, the contractors may simultaneously lodge a complaint to the project owner and the complaint settlement council.
Decree 214 also modifies and supplements the procedures for settling complaints about contractor selection results by giving the authority to issue complaint settlement decisions from the competent person to the complaint settlement council. This serves as an independent mechanism for complaint settlement and improves fairness and transparency in the process of complaint resolution.-
