Jiangxi Opens Public Consultation to Tackle the Issue of Abnormally Low Prices
2025-11-21
China Government Procurement Newspaper
This newspaper report Reporter Fu Juan reports Recently, the Jiangxi Provincial Department of Finance released the "Notice on Promoting Measures to Address Abnormally Low Bidding in Government Procurement (Draft for Comments)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Draft for Comments"), inviting public input.
The draft document proposes that procurement demand management should adhere to principles of scientific rationality, strict cost control, standardized efficiency, and clear allocation of responsibilities. Procurement entities are encouraged to develop comprehensive and well-structured procurement requirements by integrating historical project transaction data with market research findings, while also setting reasonable maximum price limits and categorizing contracts based on professional expertise. Additionally, procuring agencies are urged to adopt the concept of lifecycle cost analysis, requiring suppliers to provide quotes for installation, commissioning, and other related expenses as part of the evaluation criteria. For procurement projects involving information technology infrastructure or high-consumption instruments and equipment, suppliers must ensure compliance with open and interoperable standards, and are strictly prohibited from charging service recipients unauthorized fees. The draft also clearly defines specific scenarios constituting "abnormally low bids," including cases where a bid is less than 50% of the average price quoted by all suppliers who have passed the compliance review; when a bid falls below 50% of the second-lowest quoted price among compliant bidders; or when a bid is lower than 45% of either the project’s maximum price limit or the overall procurement budget.
The draft document clearly states that Jiangxi Province’s public resource digital and intelligent trading platform will establish an abnormal low-price early warning mechanism, enabling automatic data collection, real-time monitoring, and intelligent analysis throughout the entire procurement process. During the evaluation phase, warning notifications will be instantly sent to the evaluation committee for verification, while simultaneously being shared with the procuring entity, relevant authorities, and regulatory bodies. As a result, the announcement of the winning bid will be temporarily withheld pending further investigation. In cases involving abnormally low prices, the evaluation committee may request suppliers to provide on-site evidence, such as cost calculations, to substantiate their pricing. If suppliers fail to demonstrate the reasonableness of their bids, their proposals will be deemed invalid. Additionally, when selecting the winning bidder, purchasers are required to conduct thorough checks; if any issues arise, they may request a re-evaluation of the bids.
(Source: China Government Procurement News)
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