In December 2019, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and the National Development and Reform Commission jointly issued the “Management Measures for General Contracting of Housing Construction and Municipal Infrastructure Projects”, which will be officially implemented on March 1, 2020.

1. Risks undertaken by the construction unit
Compared with the base period price at the time of bidding, the main engineering materials, equipment, and labor prices fluctuate beyond the contractual range;

Changes in contract prices caused by changes in national laws, regulations and policies;

Changes in engineering costs and construction period caused by unforeseen geological conditions;

Changes in project costs and construction period due to the construction unit;

Changes in project costs and construction period caused by force majeure.

The specific content of risk sharing shall be agreed by both parties in the contract.

The construction unit shall not set unreasonable construction period, and shall not arbitrarily reduce the reasonable construction period.

2. Construction and design qualifications can be mutually recognized
Encourage construction units to apply for engineering design qualifications. Units with first-level and above general construction contracting qualifications can directly apply for the corresponding types of engineering design qualifications. The completed general contracting performance of the corresponding scale project can be used as the design and construction performance declaration.

Encourage design units to apply for construction qualifications. Units that have obtained comprehensive engineering design qualifications, industry Class A qualifications, and construction engineering professional Class A qualifications can directly apply for the corresponding types of general construction contracting qualifications.

3. General contractor of the project
At the same time, it has the engineering design qualification and construction qualification suitable for the project scale. Or a combination of design units and construction units with corresponding qualifications.

If the design unit and the construction unit form a consortium, the lead unit shall be reasonably determined according to the characteristics and complexity of the project.

The general contractor of the project shall not be the agent construction unit, project management unit, supervision unit, cost consulting unit, or bidding agency of the general contracted project.

4. Bidding
Use bidding or direct contracting to select the general contractor of the project.

If any item of the design, procurement or construction within the scope of a general contracting project falls within the scope of a project that must be tendered in accordance with the law and meets the national scale standards, the general contractor of the project shall be selected by means of bidding.

The construction unit may put forward the requirements for performance guarantees in the bidding documents, and require the bidding documents to specify the content of the subcontracting according to the law; for the maximum bidding price limit, it shall specify the maximum bidding price or the calculation method of the maximum bidding price.

5. Project contracting and subcontracting
For enterprise investment projects, general contracting projects shall be issued after approval or filing.

For government-invested projects that adopt the general contracting method, in principle, the general contracting project shall be issued after the preliminary design approval is completed.

For government-invested projects that simplify the approval documents and approval procedures, the general contracting project shall be issued after completing the corresponding investment decision-making approval.

The general contractor of the project may subcontract by directly issuing the contract.

6. About the contract
A total price contract should be adopted for the general contracting of enterprise investment projects.

The general contract of government-invested projects shall reasonably determine the form of contract price.

In the case of a lump-sum contract, the total contract price is generally not adjusted, except for situations where the contract can be adjusted.

It is possible to stipulate the measurement rules and pricing method for the general contract of the project in the contract.

7. The project manager should meet the following requirements
Obtain the corresponding engineering construction registered practice qualifications, including registered architects, survey and design registered engineers, registered construction engineers or registered supervision engineers, etc.; those who have not implemented the registered practice qualifications shall obtain senior professional technical titles;

Served as general contracting project manager, design project leader, construction project leader or project supervisory engineer similar to the proposed project;

Familiar with engineering technology and general contracting project management knowledge and related laws, regulations, standards and specifications;

Have strong organization and coordination ability and good professional ethics.

The general contracting project manager shall not be the general contracting project manager or the person in charge of the construction project in two or more projects at the same time.

The general contracting project manager shall bear the life-long responsibility for quality according to law.

These measures will come into effect on March 1, 2020.