Business optimization and support: What has changed on the public procurement portal?

Since January 1, 2025, due to the enactment of the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan "On Public Procurement", changes have been made to the public procurement portal. These changes will enhance the accessibility of information for businesses, facilitate and simplify procedures, and promote transparency of processes.

For example, for the development and support of entrepreneurship in most countries of the world, the Yellow Pages Rule principle works, which prohibits the state and state-owned companies from providing services provided by businesses. As part of compliance with this principle, format-logical control has been established, which provides for the rejection of applications from companies with state participation in the presence of two or more private entrepreneurs. To verify labor resources, EDS of employees will be used on the public procurement web portal.

In addition, the timing of procurement procedures at all stages has been reduced from 45 to 10 days. In particular:

• the deadline for accepting applications is 5 business days (3 business days for a competition using a rating-point system);
• the preliminary discussion takes 2 business days;
• consideration of applications, formation of the final protocol, appeal of the results, consideration of complaints about the results and the direction of the draft agreement – within 3 working days;
• for single-source purchases, the report generation period has been reduced to 5 business days.

Also, in order to support domestic business:

• conditional discounts for criteria affecting the competitive price offer have been increased: for "territorial reasons" – from 1% to 2%, for "negative values" – from 0.1% to 0.2%;
• reduced the penalty for domestic producers from 10% to 3%;
• the list of exemptions from the national regime has been expanded;
• domestic producers are exempt from all types of security;
• the mandatory advance payment is 30%.

Another advantage for businesses was the priority right of SME entities to participate in procurement of up to 50,000 MCI, as well as the possibility of concluding long-term contracts from a single source (offtake contracts).

The new public procurement rules provide for stricter controls to increase procurement transparency. In particular:

• the maximum amount of work transferred to the subcontractor is limited to 30% of the total amount of work. In case of transfer of more than 30%, the customer has the right to terminate the contract;
• the right to terminate the contract is also granted when undeclared subcontractors are involved;
• potential suppliers will be checked for salary arrears to employees.

A full list of the main changes can be found on the public procurement portal.

For the convenience of users, a chatbot has already been launched in Telegram: @EFCsupport_bot. It provides the following functions:

• Leave a message.
• Frequently asked questions.
• Get acquainted with the technical support contacts.
• Check the status of a previously sent request.

Users can also send a request to the support service of the public procurement portal by e-mail: support@ecc.kz.

Media contacts:
Press Service of the “E-Finance Center” JSC
Telephone: +7 (7172) 73-55-37 (int. 1332)