Does the Bank’s rules or guidelines stipulate any special preferences to firms from certain member countries?
In accordance with the Bank’s procurement rules, there are no special preferences and firms from all member countries of the Bank are eligible to participate and compete for contracts. Under ICB, in order to encourage the development of regional firms, the Bank encourages its Borrowers to apply, if they choose, either domestic or regional preference margins. The Maximum domestic preference margin that may be applied by the Borrower is 15% (of CIF) for goods and 10% for works while those for regional preference are 10% (of CIF) for goods and 7.5% for works. However, this must be approved by the Bank’s Board of Directors and must be clearly stipulated in the bidding documents. Where they are applicable, these margins are applied only during evaluation.
