At the meeting, Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung said that this draft law contains a group of amendments and supplements to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of bidding, ensure competition, fairness and transparency in bidding activities.

Accordingly, it is required to amend and supplement regulations on cases of appointment of contractors in order to create a legal basis and favorable conditions for application in urgent cases or to accelerate the implementation of key projects, such as, bidding packages for disease prevention and control; bidding packages of important national projects that need to be implemented immediately according to the Resolution of the National Assembly; bidding packages for the provision of consulting services; bidding packages for compensation, site clearance and resettlement.

In addition, it is crucial to amend and supplement regulations on selection of contractors and investors in special cases in the direction of clarifying and delineating specific cases and conditions for application of contractor appointment and selection of contractors and investors in special cases.

At the same time, it is necessary to step up decentralization for ministers and chairpersons of provincial People's Committees in deciding on the selection of contractors and investors in special cases. Accordingly, the Prime Minister shall only decide on the list and the contractor selection process in case the bidding package is included in the regular procurement estimates of state agencies with a general scope of application across the country.

It is necessary to comprehensively and deeply evaluate the obstacles and inadequacies in the implementation of centralized bidding and purchase of drugs and medical equipment in the past time. Photo: NA

Notably, the addition of regulations allowing bidding documents to be made requires goods to originate from a specific group of countries and territories in case it is necessary to buy goods that are advanced quality, modern, high technology, including medical supplies and equipment.

The requirement is to amend and supplement regulations on evaluation of contractor reputation; how to determine the cost for the entire life cycle of goods and works; procurement of environmentally friendly products in order to prevent contractors from bidding at low prices to win bids, and failing to ensure the progress and quality of contract performance.

Along with that, it is fundamental to supplement regulations on centralized procurement in the direction of applying "open framework agreements" to create a legal basis for selecting numerous winning contractors to supply goods in order to increase competition and ensure the contractor's ability to supply goods; supplement regulations to allow appointment of contractors and direct negotiations with manufacturers in addition to open bidding to procure drugs and goods in case of epidemics and emergencies.

Mr. Nguyen Phu Cuong, Chairman of the NA's Finance-Budget Committee, said that the Standing Committee of the Finance - Budget Committee agreed on the need to amend the Law in order to promptly overcome the limitations and shortcomings of the current law; ensure the consistency and synchronism of the legal system; contributing to improving the effectiveness and efficiency in bidding, contractor selection and management and use of state capital and assets.

Therefore, it is necessary to limit the application of contractor appointment to special cases including urgent projects; ensuring confidentiality related to security and defense; investment in procurement of drugs, chemicals, biological products, medical equipment and supplies for epidemic prevention and control in case of emergency and special cases associated with ensuring synchronous requirements for technology, research testing, buying and selling intellectual property rights, etc.

It is also significant to supplement regulations on special cases of selecting contractors and investors to meet practical requirements. However, the Government is requested to clarify what is a special case and what is a particularity; at the same time, it is necessary to stipulate principles, criteria, conditions and requirements for bidding packages to be applied to select contractors and investors in special cases.

Agreeing with the provisions on incentives in contractor selection specified in Article 8 of the draft Law, however, the Standing Committee of the Finance - Budget Committee proposed the Government to review preferential regulations for manufactured domestic goods to ensure compliance, without being contrary to international commitments to which Vietnam is a member. There are overgeneralized contents that do not provide specific quantification, and are difficult to apply in practice or arbitrarily apply, therefore, it is recommended to review the specific regulations of these contents.

Regarding centralized bidding, drug purchase, provision of public products and services, Mr. Nguyen Phu Cuong said that most of the opinions of the Finance - Budget Committee suggested that the Government comprehensively and deeply evaluate the obstacles, problems and inadequacies in the implementation of centralized bidding and purchase of drugs and medical equipment in the past time to have more specific regulations, limiting the assignment of detailed regulations by the Government.

Regarding objective reasons, the lack of medicine and medical supplies over the past time is because the Ministry of Health took a long time to synthesize data nationwide. Besides, after the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of patients coming to health facilities for medical treatment increased more than expected. In addition, the epidemic occurring worldwide has led to disruptions in the supply of drugs and medical supplies.

To overcome the above situation, the Ministry of Health has settled and purchased 86/106 concentrated drugs and 19/65 brand-name drugs. At the same time, the Ministry of Health is also amending Circular 15 in the direction of further decentralization for subordinates in the procurement of medical supplies./.