Hong Kong, October 27, 2017 - The demand for buildings’ maintenance and repair projects has surged since the Government launched the Mandatory Building Inspection Scheme (MBIS) several years ago. At the same time there has been a rise of project prices and tender rigging. Considering not all property owners have related experience or technical knowledge when carrying out rehabilitation works for their buildings, in May 2016 the Urban Renewal Authority (URA) introduced the "Smart Tender" Building Rehabilitation Facilitating Services to provide professional and technical assistance for property owners of multi-owned private residential or composite buildings, aiming to encourage more owners to carry out building rehabilitation works and reduce their risk of encountering tender rigging at the procurement stage.

Since its launch, Smart Tender has received 107 valid applications and approved 59 of them, involving around 26,000 residential units. Smart Tender has gained wide attention of the media and the society, and the URA has stated that scheme has been making an impact on tackling tender rigging (Source: press release of the URA on October 3, 2017). Recently the URA also launched a Smart Tender concession scheme in response to the Government's 2017-18 Budget initiative to earmark $300 million to encourage property owners to join Smart Tender at a concessionary rate. It is devoting large efforts to promoting the scheme to the society through the media.

Since establishing the Smart Tender e-tendering platform in May 2016, C&T worked closely with the URA to deliver stable and reliable technical solutions with system enhancement and maintenance. Through this e-tendering platform, owners’ corporations can register tenders and activate the tendering procedure by publishing notices to contractors, who can then view the newly published projects and submit bids according to the tendering procedure, within which every bidder’s identity and bidding price are kept confidential. This eliminates the possibility of bidders forcing their competitors out of bidding, lowering the chance of rigging.

In the past year, C&T worked closely with the URA to enhance the system, including the addition of a dedicated document management solution to refine the process of contractor registration and administration.

The URA is encouraged that Smart Tender has received positive feedback from property owners since its launch a year ago. The team of C&T professionals will continue to contribute their best to the provision of advanced enterprise procurement management solutions that can lead more property owners to proper maintenance and repair for their buildings. 

Government Announcements:

Information Services Department
http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201710/20/P2017102000492.htm

Urban Renewal Authority
http://www.ura.org.hk/en/media/press-release/20171003

Media Coverage:

Commercial Radio
http://www.881903.com/Page/ZH-TW/newsdetail.aspx?csid=261_341&itemid=971039