What is the difference between Tender and Bid?

When will the World Bank change “Tender” to “Bid”? Tener and Bid are just different terms used in British English and American English. FIDIC (the International Federation of Consulting Engineers), based in Switzerland, uses the British-style term Tender, while the World Bank, headquartered in Washington, D.C., uses the American-style term Bid. Historically, the World Bank has used the FIDIC Conditions of Contract for Construction (Red Book) and the Conditions of Contract for Electrical and Mechanical Engineering (Yellow Book) for its engineering procurement. FIDIC also has an important document, the FIDIC Tendering Procedure (published in 1982 and revised in 1994), which is used in conjunction with the FIDIC Red Book and FIDIC Yellow Book, versions 3 from 1978 and version 4 from 1987. There is a concession agreement between FIDIC and the World Bank, which allows the World Bank to include FIDIC documents directly in its standard tender documents as part of them. However, the World Bank does not have the right to modify the wording of the FIDIC documents, as this relates to copyright issues. Therefore, the World Bank’s standard tender documents contain many terms related to tenders. The World Bank needs to pay a licensing fee to FIDIC annually, while the World Bank’s documents are free. Therefore, if one wishes to study the original FIDIC contracts, they can download the World Bank’s Standard Tender Documents, without having to purchase the expensive original FIDIC documents. In January 1995, the World Bank issued a new version of the Procurement Guidelines, section 2.12 of which stipulates: “Borrowers shall use the appropriate Standard Bidding Documents (SBDs) issued by the Bank, with minimal changes acceptable to the Bank, as necessary to address country and project specific issues. Any such changes shall be introduced only through bid or contract data sheets, or through special conditions of contract, and not by introducing changes in the standard wording of the Bank’s SBDs.” Any such changes may only be included in the tender documents or contract documents, or in the special clauses of the contract; they must not alter the standard wording in the bank’s standard tender documents. ) In accordance with the above provisions, the World Bank has also issued a series of standard tender documents. (1) In January 1995, the World Bank issued a new version of the \"Standard Tender Documents – Engineering Procurement\", applicable to projects worth over 10 million dollars. The standard contract for this version continues to use the 1987 4th Edition FIDIC Red Book. Paragraph 1.3 of the \"Instructions to Bidders\" in these standard bidding documents states: 1.3 Throughout these bidding documents, the terms “bid” and “tender” and their derivatives (“bidder/tenderer”, “bid/tendered”, “bidding/tendering”, etc.) are synonymous, and day means calendar day. Singular also means plural. ［Translation: 1.3 In these bidding documents, the terms “bid” and “tender” along with their derived forms (“bidder/tenderer”, “bid/tendered”, “bidding/tendering”, etc.) have the same meaning.］ “\"Day\" refers to a calendar day. Singular words also refer to plural words. ］ (2) In January 1995, the World Bank released a new version of the \"Standard Tender Documents – Goods Procurement\". The standard tender documents do not contain the aforementioned term “bid/tender”, as goods procurement is carried out under standard contracts developed by the World Bank, which use only the term Bid and not Tender. (3) In February 1995, the World Bank drafted the \"Standard Tender Documents – Supply and Installation of Equipment and Facilities\"; after trial use, it was officially published in November 1997. This standard tender document adopts the \"Model Form of International Contract for Process Plant Construction\" published by the Engineering Advancement Association (ENAA) in Japan, to replace the FIDIC Yellow Book. Japan’s ENAA allows the World Bank to improve this international contract template. This standard tender document uses only the term “Bid” and not “Tender”. In August 1995, FIDIC issued the Orange Book («Conditions of Contract for Design-Build and Turnkey Projects») in order to compete with the ENAA contract and regain its position held by the Yellow Book, but it failed in the end. (4) In January 1995, the World Bank published for the first time a completely new version of the \"Standard Tender Document – Engineering Procurement (Small Contracts)\\", which is applicable to \"small projects\" involving international competitive bidding with a value of less than $10 million; after revisions, it can also be applied to domestic competitive bidding projects. This “minor contract” is a standard contract developed by the World Bank itself, using the term “Bid” instead of “Tender”. The Ministry of Finance of our country’s “Model Bid Documents for World Bank Loan Projects – Domestic Competitive Bid Documents for Civil Engineering Works” (May 1997 edition, published by Tsinghua University Press) is based on the aforementioned World Bank’s “Standard Bid Documents – Procurement of Works (Small Contracts)” (1995 edition), and has been revised to suit domestic competitive bidding projects. Paragraph 4 of the “Preface” of this template states: “4. The provisions of the new ‘template’ are more standardized and operational.” The provisions regarding force majeure, dispute resolution, taxation, performance bonds, and anti-fraud measures are consistent across all texts. The domestic competitive bidding documents for civil engineering projects have replaced the overly complex FIDIC clauses from the old \"templates\" with contract terms that are simpler to understand and more practical to implement. ” The standard contract in this new template is the aforementioned World Bank’s “Minor Contract,” but it has been revised to conform to China’s laws and national conditions. In 1991, the World Bank Department of China’s Ministry of Finance organized the compilation and publication of the \"Model Documents for Tendering and Procurement of World Bank Loan Projects.\" The \"Domestic Competitive Tendering Documents for Civil Engineering Projects\" included in this set were derived from the World Bank’s \"Standard Tendering Documents – Procurement of Works,\" with the standard contract based on the FIDIC Red Book and containing many terms used in tenders. The aforementioned May 1997 version of the \"Domestic Competitive Bidding Documents for Civil Engineering\" is based on the World Bank’s \"Standard Bidding Documents – Procurement of Works (Small Contracts)\” from January 1995, which uses only the term \"Bid\" rather than \"Tender\”. As a result, many people thought that after 1992, the World Bank’s Standard Tender Documents changed “Tender” to “Bid”. The World Bank’s 1995 series of Standard Tender Documents did not use the FIDIC Tendering Procedures, probably because the World Bank was dissatisfied with the 1994 revision of the FIDIC Tendering Procedures. Since the World Bank uses the English language, English terms such as “Tender” have been replaced by their English equivalents, “Bid”. Currently, the World Bank’s “Standard Tender Documents – Procurement of Works” consists of the following 3 parts: PART 1 – BIDDING PROCEDURES, Part 1: Tendering Procedures; PART 2 – WORKS REQUIREMENTS, Part 2: Requirements for the Works; PART 3 – CONDITIONS OF CONTRACT AND CONTRACT FORMS, Part 3: Contract Conditions and Contract Forms. Since the World Bank no longer uses the “FIDIC Tendering Procedures,” FIDIC has not yet prepared a new version of them.

Summary: (1) Many years ago, the World Bank’s engineering and technical capabilities were relatively weak, forcing it to use the FIDIC templates; as a result, its standard tender documents contained many terms related to tenders. (2) After 1995, the World Bank stopped using the FIDIC tendering procedures and gradually developed its own standard contracts to replace the FIDIC contracts. As a result, there has been a trend in the World Bank’s standard tender documents to replace “Tender” with “Bid”. (3) The World Bank replaced “Tender” with “Bid,” reflecting its growing technical capabilities as it moved away from the FIDIC templates and developed its own standard templates with proprietary intellectual property. Many people in China believe that the World Bank has long adopted the 1999 FIDIC New Rainbow Series (New Red Book, New Yellow Book, Silver Book, Green Book), which may be based on assumption or hearsay. In fact, in the current \"Standard Tender Documents\" officially issued by the World Bank, only large-scale project procurements worth over ten million dollars use the FIDIC Red Book MDB version (first published in May 2005; the current version is from March 2006). Currently, the World Bank is gradually replacing FIDIC as the dominant standard for international engineering contracts. This post was last edited by king263 on 2009-2-16 14:54.]

Oh, great. Let’s learn about the differences between them and then expand our English vocabulary. Thank you for bringing these here.

It’s very useful; I’ve learned a lot from it. My daily work involves dealing with various prequalification and bidding documents, which is frustrating, but it also helps me gain a lot of experience~:handshake

The definition of “Bid” in English dictionaries is: to offer to pay a particular price for something, especially at an auction; and to offer to do work or provide a service for a particular price, in competition with other companies, etc. It seems that translating it as “bid” would be appropriate; however, in the subsequent explanations we find that its synonym is “tender”； Under the term “tender,” the dictionary defines it as “v. to make a formal offer to supply goods or carry out work at a stated price” and “n. a formal offer to supply goods or carry out work at a stated price”; its meaning is also “bid” or “proposal.” In the dictionary, “tender” is also marked with SYN (synonym) as BID (idem). The author has come across in many international tender documents that “bidders” is translated as ‘bidder’, while “bidding documents” is sometimes translated as ‘tender documents’ and sometimes as ‘bid documents’. In the FIDIC Tendering Procedure, “tenderers” refers to ‘bidders’, and “tender” can sometimes mean ‘tendering’ and sometimes ‘bid’ or ‘bid documents’. It appears that bid and tender convey the same meaning in bidding processes; their exact significance should be determined by the position of the user within such processes as well as the context in which they are used

LiHX_Susan explained things really well; this is also a challenge I encountered while working on an international procurement project in India recently. I was quite confused at the time, so I researched a lot of information. There is a difference between the two, mainly in terms of the status of each party and the content of the bid. So, I think BID might be better.