For the expansion of the Metro Railway Transit, the Department of Transportation and Communications announced the ₱3.76-billion financial proposal of China's Dalian Locomotive & Rolling Stock Co. CNR Group satisfied the eligibility requirements during the opening of its offer late Tuesday. A Metro Rail Transit (MRT) train is seen Manila on October 31, 2010. AFP PHOTO/NOEL CELIS (Rappler.com)
China's dominance in the world for Engineering Design and Construction (EPC) projects has been proven not only in the Philippines but almost all part of Africa and Latin America.
With the Bidding SOP; winning bidders would be awarded to the lowest bidder, China led that system as the Government will give more incentives to any Chinese firms who win any bidding for foreign projects such as tax exemption for the income of such project and even the Chinese government sometimes will shoulder the loses of any private firm just to win the project and to offer the lowest bid.
For every EPC project that invites Chinese firm to join the bidding, most Europeans, Koreans and Japanese firms will usually back out as proven for so many EPC projects Chinese firm would really win with their lowest bid and government's backup.
According to most Korean company, if Chinese will join bidding for EPC projects, they could just be wasting money to join the bidding because China would really dominates and the same thing happened in the Philippines' Bid for MRT project which other bidder back out after knowing that Chinese firm is invited to join the bidding.
How to invite bidders without driving away the other participants?
If the Bidding SOP; winning bidders would be awarded only to the lowest bidder, then the world would expect that China will dominates but if the system would change into the lowest "Quality" bidder, then it could invite other firm as many firms are more experienced in doing EPC project than china. Requiring at least 20 years of experience in such project would surely disqualify Chinese firm to join the bidding.
Other reasons also matters under the table issues.
Only Chinese firm left in bidding for MRT expansion
The DOTC is now evaluating a single proposal by a lone bidder Chinese manufacturer for the ₱3.77-billion expansion of the Metro Railway Transit's capacity through the addition of more trains after another firm was disqualified and three would-be bidders did not submit bids at all.
The Department of Transportation and Communications (DoTC) announced that the P3.76-billion financial proposal of China's Dalian Locomotive & Rolling Stock Co. CNR Group satisfied the eligibility requirements during the opening of its offer late Tuesday.
DoTC's bids and awards committee did not open the proposal of the Chinese firm CSR Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Co. Ltd., whose submission lacked certain technical requirements.
CSR Zhuzhou was to file a motion for reconsideration or MR, DoTC undersecretary for legal Jose Perpetuo Lotilla told reporters after the opening of the proposal. He said the plan was for the DoTC to "resolve the MR as soon as possible"
In light of its compliance with the DoTC's requirements, Dalian Locomotive's proposal will now be evaluated by the agency. If it passes this process, the company will be awarded the project, Lotilla said.
"There were only two bidders but we just opened one. It's not as good for government," Lotilla noted.
He also declined to comment on how long the evaluation process would take, given the technical nature of the project.
"This is a highly technical bid. We are talking about train systems. So there is a technical proposal, and that is subject to post-qualification," Lotilla said.
The transportation department pushed for the bidding after it dropped a plan to acquire second-hand trains from a Spanish manufacturer.
"We looked at our options for purchasing some of the coaches from Metro de Madrid, but it turns out that this would not have significantly improved the timeframe we are working on," DoTC spokesperson Michael Sagcal said in a separate statement. "So we decided to continue with the ongoing procurement of new trains instead. This should also result in lower maintenance costs."
Through the capacity expansion, DoTC will add 48 train cars to MRT 3, which runs 16.9 kilometers on EDSA from North Avenue to Taft Avenue and serves an estimated 600,000 passengers a day, well above its designed capacity of 350,000, the transportation department said.
The elevated MRT 3 train service has a fleet of 73 train cars, serving passengers at supposedly three-minute intervals. DoTC said the addition of new cars will cut the waiting time to 2.5-minute intervals.
With report from INQUIRER
