EAEU countries continue to work to remove barriers to the public procurement market. One of the main issues was technical requirements, including nationally defined bank guarantees. The publication writes about it”Kommersant“. Russian legislation limits the list of banks that can issue guarantees, making it mandatory for these banks to be included in the list of the Ministry of Finance and obtain a credit rating from a Russian rating agency.
However, the EAEU countries have agreed to lift these restrictions and mutually recognize the guarantees of all EAEU countries. The Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) Council signed the relevant agreement.
This agreement will help remove key barriers to suppliers in the EAEU, who are facing difficulties in obtaining guarantees from their country banks and recognizing electronic digital signatures. Although there were no formal restrictions on mutual access to public procurement markets in the EAEU, in practice differences in national requirements created artificial barriers. But these barriers are gradually being lifted, and in 2022 a list of measures for the digitization of public procurement was approved at the EAEU.
Currently, EAEU suppliers have two options for securing an application for participation in public procurement in Russia: a bank guarantee and a cash contribution to a private account. But both options required additional precautions for effective work. For example, the Russian Ministry of Finance has mandated that the security of tender bids be deposited into special accounts at authorized banks, not to customers or bidders. For suppliers from the EAEU, this required registration with the Russian tax service and completion of formalities. However, these restrictions were lifted in June.
As for bank guarantees, the requirements for them are set at national level in accordance with the EAEU agreement. Participation in public procurement in Russia required guarantees from banks listed by the Ministry of Finance and having a Russian credit rating.
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