Epidemic is an order and time is life. Jiaxing Finance Bureau has striven to give play to the positive roles of the finance, established Zhejiang’s first management and service platform to ensure the material supplies for the prevention and control of Covid-19, opened a “green channel” and hung up a “guidance map” for the government procurement and made online invitation of tenders and transactions to realize the rapid transportation of emergency goods against the epidemic in an unimpeded way, according to the news released yesterday by Jiaxing Finance Bureau.

 Jiaxing has established Zhejiang’s first management and service platform to ensure the material supplies for the prevention and control of the Covid-19 during the epidemic outbreak. Where are necessary materials needed urgently for the prevention and control of the epidemic? What materials are in short supply? How to avoid battling against the epidemic separately? At the beginning of the epidemic outbreak, this bureau managed anti-epidemic materials and funds in urgent need, raised and spent the anti-epidemic funds and procured products like masks, protective suits, thermometers, testing kids, disinfectants etc. in a centralized way.

 “We have gathered all procurement funds for urgent epidemic prevention products of all counties, county-level cities and districts of Jiaxing and donations received by Jiaxing Red Cross to make unified management.” said an official from Jiaxing Finance Bureau.

 By fully giving play to the role of this management and service platform, this bureau has integrated the management of information, funds, materials and data concerning the epidemic, had a real-time mastery of each region’s anti-epidemic material requirements and urgently-needed materials’ price fluctuations to facilitate the supply, demand and procurement, played the positive financial role in dealing with the urgency, and made all articles traceable with numbers and their management transparent at both entry and exit ends.

 In order to supervise and manage anti-epidemic materials, this bureau has built a table-based management mode to manage the procurement, allotment and check processes of the epidemic prevention and control materials in an unimpeded way, arranged its full-time staff to take charge of each process, verify and analyze relevant data every day, and made regular checks-up of the anti-epidemic materials in the warehouses.

 With a view to purchasing anti-epidemic materials promptly, this bureau has simplified the administrative examination and approval procedures of the government procurement, and allowed departments and organizations concerned to procure badly-needed materials without administrative examination and approval beforehand and go through relevant procurement procedures to guarantee the rapid purchase of epidemic prevention and control materials.  

 Also this bureau has formulated the government procurement flow chart and key policy points to guide purchasers to procure materials more conveniently and clearly, and promptly publicized and implemented procurement policies to ensure the rapid and orderly procurement in this special period.

 “It took us about one month to procure special equipment in the past, but now in the epidemic period, we make procurement in light of the flow chart so that the time is shortened by one fifth and the efficiency is enhanced to a greater degree.” said an official from Health Commission of Jiaxing.

 Except the urgently-needed procurement during the epidemic, other procurement can be made on the e-transaction system “Government Procurement Cloud” to avoid face-to-face contacts as many as possible. The offline government procurement time from the procurement notice date to the dates of the opening of bids and beginning of response files should be prolonged to leave more time for suppliers to tender and post their response files.

 In addition, procurers are encouraged to make procurement through the supermarkets,  service markets, online inquiries and reversed auctions of the “Government Procurement Cloud” except those projects which required opening tendering according to the law. The procurers, suppliers and agencies can deal with such issues online or by post such as procurement documents, confirmation of procurement results and signature of procurement contracts, and the procurement departments are urged to intensify their internal management of procurement documents and certificates for verification later.