The National Assembly Standing Committee discussed the amended Bidding Law draft and amendments to the Enterprise Law at a meeting in Hanoi on May 15.

The discussion was chaired by NA Deputy Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan.

The deputies said that State-funded bidding activities had been problematic in several ways. Many localities displayed a lack of professionalism, while others were not prepared for bidding activities or for post-bidding management.

They agreed that the amended Bidding Law should combine legal regulations on bidding activities into one law, saying that this would ensure consistency when it came to selecting bidders and investors for State-funded projects and deal with bidding problems.

The deputies proposed that the State take stricter control over the selection of bidders for development projects that receive funding of at least 500 billion VND (24 million USD) from the Government or projects in which Government funding makes up at least 30 percent of total funding.

The deputies also agreed that international bidders in Vietnam must co-operate with a Vietnamese assistant bidder and employ Vietnamese workers in order to enable domestic bidders to participate in projects.

They added that the nomination of bidders should be made only in emergency situations.

At the meeting, deputies also discussed several contents of the amendments to Article 170 of the Enterprise Law. They debated whether enterprises should be allowed to request extensions on activities and increased funding and staff when their operational licences had not yet expired.-VNA