China to Pursue Strict Enforcement on Public Bidding 　　China's top legislature plans to formulate its first public-bidding law to outlawing unfair trade and corruption in this sector. 　　Zeng Peiyan, minister in charge of the State Development Planning Commission, presented a report on the draft law this morning to the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People's Congress (NPC). 　　"It's desperately urgent that we formulate a law governing public bidding in order to improve investment efficiency and safeguard the quality of construction projects for the state," Zeng said. 　　Since the early 1980s, China has carried out a public bidding system in the use of foreign funds, the importing of large-scale machinery equipment, the distributing of huge construction projects, and the allocating of export quotas among domestic manufacturers. 　　However, the country has yet to adopt a law standardizing practices in this regard. 　　"Our experience proves that the public bidding system can boost the reform of investment and finance, create a fair market environment, and improve the quality of construction projects," Zeng said. 　　The draft law stipulates that contractors must secure the right to build infrastructure projects, public facilities, and projects financed by international or foreign funds through public bidding. 　　Two of the methods chosen for future practice will be open bidding and invitation bidding, both of which are accepted worldwide. 　　Appraisal committees, which should be comprised of veteran technological and economic experts, will make final decisions on public bidding, according to the draft law stipulations. 　　To strictly safeguard project quality, the draft law prohibits illegal sub-contractors. 　　Before the economic reforms in the late 1970s, government bodies allocated construction projects and official purchases in accordance with previous plans rather than market needs. 　　In 1984, only 4.8 percent of all construction projects in the country were allocated on the basis of public bidding. But this percentage has now risen to 60 percent. 　　Contracts for machinery-equipment trade arrived at through open bidding were valued at more than US$1 billion this year in China, and government bodies now also purchase office articles, vehicles, and services through public bidding. 　　At the same time, China is pouring more funds into infrastructure to stimulate sustained economic development. 　　The latest statistics show that illegal activities in public bidding for construction projects now account for over 40 percent of all economic criminal cases. 　　For example, this sort of activity is thought to be responsible for recent bridge collapses and sinking roads in Chongqing Municipality, and Yunnan and Liaoning provinces. 　　None of these poor-quality projects was subject to public bidding or strict supervision. HomeNews 1999-04-27 Page3 Full Story in Chinese