State Council moves to unify disjointed bidding platforms for better supervision

China will create integrated, standardized platforms for bidding, government procurement and other deals involving public resources - the country's latest move to ratchet up its national anti-corruption drive.

At Friday's executive meeting of the State Council, presided over by Premier Li Keqiang, leaders decided to integrate by the end of June 2016 the now-scattered and disjointed platforms covering construction project bidding, the transfer of land-use rights, mining rights, State-owned properties and government procurement projects. Experts said the exchanges of such public resources are prone to bribery since they involve a large amount of money and lack transparency.

In addition, an "up-to-standard, open, transparent and efficient" platform will be in place by the end of June 2017 to form an integrated public resources exchange market, a statement released after the meeting said.

The statement said the building of integrated platforms will help cut bureaucracy, improve efficiency and prevent corruption.

Zhu Lijia, professor of public policy at the Chinese Academy of Governance, called the decision a step forward for the country as it seeks to combat bribery and duty dereliction, especially in project construction. Last month, Chinese leaders decided to exclude those who have a history of bribery from bidding on construction projects.

Zhu said a transparent, integrated deal-making platform for public resources could reduce the chances of bribery because the platform will be handled by the government at a higher level and administrative supervision of such deals will be possible.

He said project subcontracting and construction usually have a higher rate of bribe-taking since the procedures for bidding and government procurement in some places are still substandard.

"Corruption taking place in these sectors can exert a long-lasting impact. If a company makes a deal through bribes, it is highly likely it will cut costs and use substandard materials during construction to save the money it used to pay bribes," he said.

"If they also send bribes during the final quality-inspection procedures, the quality will not be guaranteed and this will endanger people living and working inside."

Friday's meeting also saw the government pledging to set up a national guarantee fund, jointly run by governments, banks and financial institutions providing secured loans, to compensate part of the bank losses if a business they supported ended up failing.

zhaoyinan@chinadaily.com.cn