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[English | 简体] Tender of Construction Projects

Invitation of Tender

When the client decides to proceed the project by enter into a contract , normally there are 3 ways to select a contractor that are as follows : -

a) Open tendering
b) Invited tendering
c) Negotiation with a selected contractor

“ Instructions to tenderers ” will be issued to the interested parties to assist them to complete the tender documents , and return the tenders in a format as required by the client or its engineer for easy assessment .

Tender Bond
The employer might require each of the tenderers to provide a bond ( usually from a bank ) as a security to ensure the selected contractor would not attempt to withdraw its tender after submission or refuse to sign the contract after it is awarded . In the latter case , it obviously will cause loss to the employer owing to the additional expense or time delay to the proposed project .

Tender Query
During the preparation of the tender , the prospective contractors may make extensive inquiries for clarification of some omissions , mistakes , uncertainties or ambiguities found in the tender documents . In order to assist the tenderers to ascertain the appropriate cost and time of work and to minimize the contractual risks , the client’s engineer will reply to these queries and copy to all tenderers at the same time for their information .

Assessment of Tender Bids
Tendered price , works experience and financial standing are essential for selection of a prospective contractor . A comparison summary with analysis of all the tenders should be well presented for assessment purpose .

There is always a clause in the tender documents to remind the tenderers that the client does not undertake to accept the lowest or any tender . However in case a tender other than the lowest is recommended , full explanation must be recorded to clarify others’ query .

In fact , the client and its engineer may not have to know precisely how the tenderers build up their tender price . Nevertheless if some BQ items are found that bear an exceptionally higher or lower quoted rate than the estimate , careful examination should be conducted to explore whether there are mistakes or errors had been made by the tenderer ; or otherwise these mistakes or errors in fact exist in the contract documents .

Tender Additional Appendices
During the tendering period , the client and its engineer will take time to go through again the contract documents and carefully examine whether there are omissions or mistakes exist . In case omissions or mistakes are discovered , the client’s engineer will inform all the tenderers at the same time before the tender is closed .

In case there are minor change of design and updating of works details , the client’s engineer will inform all the tenderers by means of letters and these letters will be kept as appendices in the tender documents .

Tender of Construction Projects Sub-Pages