The State Council released the catalog and standards for centralized government procurement under the central budget for 2020, which took effect on Jan 1.

The catalog identifies the products, engineering projects and services that must be purchased by institutions for centralized procurement.

According to the document, centralized procurement projects include goods, engineering and services to meet the special requirements of certain departments and systems, and they need unified allocation by the department or the system. Central budget units can organize procurement according to their actual work needs after filing for approval with the Ministry of Finance.

Any procurement of goods or services with a single order or bulk purchase of over 1 million yuan ($143,875) and engineering projects of more than 1.2 million yuan should follow the Government Procurement Law of the People’s Republic of China and the Tender Bidding Law of the People’s Republic of China.

The standard also ruled that any government procurement project with a single order of over 2 million yuan must be open to bids.