Tender, bid digitalization process ramps up

China will accelerate digitalization and information sharing for tenders and bids from this year, according to officials from the National Development and Reform Commission, the nation's top economic policy regulator.

The regulator will also work on providing a legal basis for the application of information technology to the industry, added Yang Jie, director of the department of laws and regulations of the NDRC.

A digitalized tendering system allows information exchange between platforms and across regions. In recent years, the NDRC has set up public service platforms in provinces and cities that encourage information exchange with local tender platforms. Information exchanged includes regulations, bidders' information, costs and bid prices.

China Tendering and Bidding Public Service Platform, the central information hub for local public service platforms, had achieved 200 million data exchanges with 258 trading platforms by the end of 2017, said Ren Long, head of the China Tendering & Bidding Association, at an industry forum recently.

Electric utility provider State Grid Corp of China has saved over 23 billion yuan($3.57 billion) annually thanks to efficient data management of its tender and bid system, according to Zhao Haotong, director of the company's department of technical support.

Xu Kailian, director at Guizhou Province Tendering and Bidding Public Service Plat-form, said they are working on big data analysis on projects regarding amount, costs, bid prices, experts who offer bid evaluation, and other aspects.

"Information sharing and data management benefit those making tenders and bids, and helps improve efficiency, cutting trading costs of tender platforms," said Lin Nianxiu, deputy chairman of the NDRC.

In addition to companies that use their own platforms, like State Grid, companies that use third-party platforms for tenders can also benefit from the plan. "The public service platform in Guizhou offers information on bidders that gives more insights to tenderers for better decision-making," said Xu.

Liu Yukun contributed to this story.