China's Ministry of Construction, State Development Planning Commission and Ministry of Supervision recently released guidelines that require contractors on State-invested real estate and infrastructure projects to be selected via bidding on trade markets, the State-run People Daily reported on April 2.
State-invested projects are defined in the guidelines as any project in which State funds represent a majority of investment.
China has established trade markets in 328 out of 338 prefectures in an attempt to improve transparency in contractor bids.
"Management of trade markets must be completely separated from the government after June," said Wang Huangtao, minister of the Ministry of Construction.
Wang also called for "reasonable" charges from bidding contractors.
(Xinhua News Agency April 04, 2002)
