On August 25, 2022, in Da Nang, a Conference to collect opinions on the draft Law of Bidding (amended) was organized by the Finance and Budget Committee (National Assembly). Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Nguyen Duc Hai attended and delivered a speech to direct the Conference.

Representatives of the Department of Procurement Management, Ministry of Planning and Investment presented amendments and supplements compared to the Law on Bidding No. 43/2013/QH13; the draft expands the scope of regulation and completes regulations on methods and forms of organizing the selection of contractors and investors; overcome inadequacies and obstacles in order to improve the efficiency of bidding; continue to simplify financial procedures and complete regulations on incentives for domestic production.

At the seminar, Ms. Nguyen Thi Duyen, President of the Vietnam Engineering Consultant Association gave a speech on “International experience in adjusting and supplementing contracts under FIDIC”. Accordingly, FIDIC’s construction contract templates provide circumstances that lead to contract adjustments, but stipulate that the Contractor and the Owner must comply with the applicable Law when performing the contract. Therefore, the contract adjustment must be based on the provisions of Vietnamese law. Decree 37/2015/ND-CP detailing construction contracts specified in Clause 3, Article 54: “Encouraging organizations and individuals to apply the contract forms of the International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC), forms construction contract into the establishment and performance of construction contracts. When applying model construction contracts, the parties must consider and adjust the contract content to be consistent with the provisions of Vietnamese law”

The problem is that in legal documents, there are always the same provisions as: For construction contracts of projects using official development assistance capital (ODA), if an international treaty to which Vietnam is a contracting party, If a member has provisions different from those in this Law/Decree, the provisions of that international treaty shall apply. However, to what extent the provisions of the signed agreement when applying an international contract model like that of FIDIC should be considered to guide clients when preparing and issuing bidding documents, limiting any dealing with problems leading to contract disputes during the implementation process.