A smaller contractor can now count a subcontractor's track record in state tenders

Experience requirements are how most small contractors are kept out of public work: a tender asks for a track record you cannot have until you have won a tender. Under the new procurement rules a bidder may combine its own experience with a subcontractor's. The worked example given is a ₾5 million experience requirement met with ₾2 million of the bidder's own record and ₾3 million from a subcontractor.

The rules also introduce electronic catalogues and framework agreements that can run three to four years or longer and include several suppliers. For a supplier of materials or services to public bodies, a framework place is a different business from bidding job by job: slower to win, far steadier once held. For a buyer of property near public works, framework agreements are one reason a programme of works can keep moving across several budget years.

Technical standards must now be set in advance, with price deciding only among bids that already comply. That is a direct answer to the familiar pattern of the cheapest bid winning and the work then stalling. It should mean fewer abandoned sites and more realistic prices, and it also means a bidder who cannot document compliance will not get a second look on price alone.

This summary comes from a business digest rather than from the regulation itself, and procurement reform in Georgia has been announced in stages, with a wider package of amendments to procurement law and technical regulations described as in preparation earlier in the year. Before building a bid around combined experience, read the current rules and the specific tender documents, and confirm with the procurement agency that the combination is accepted in that category of works.