HÀ NỘI – Việt Nam will open its public procurement market after the Việt Nam - EU free trade agreement (EVFTA) comes into effect.

The agreement is expected to be signed at the end of this year and come into effect next year, when Việt Nam will open its public procurement market for the first time.

The opening up of the public procurement market under EVFTA commitments is expected to make bidding more transparent and competitive, and offer a better quality of goods.

Goods from the 28 EU member nations will complement Vietnamese goods.

Meanwhile, investors will have to work more and more responsibility so that taxes are more effectively spent.

The opening of the market will also provide opportunities for Vietnamese contractors to reach the EU’s large public procurement market, reported Thời báo Tài chính Việt Nam (Vietnam Financial Times) newspaper.

Việt Nam will have two options when selecting bidders under the agreement. In the first instance, only bidders and goods from EU countries that are part of the EVFTA will be allowed to take part in the bidding. For cases of a larger and more complex scale, Việt Nam may add non-members of the EVFTA to ensure an efficient bidding process.

In the future, Việt Nam also plans to encourage the private sector to get involved in the public procurement market. The Ministry of Finance is drafting this project which will assess the status of private enterprises participating in the public procurement market and markets providing public services.

It will also review the advantages and disadvantages to propose mechanisms and policies to encourage private enterprises to join these markets.

The project is expected to be implemented from 2019 to 2021. — VNS