International Tender

A Korail subway car on the Seoul subway. (Photo by frakorea via Wikimedia Commons)
A Korail subway car on the Seoul subway. (Photo by frakorea via Wikimedia Commons)

 

Seoul Metro announced on Dec. 21 that it is purchasing 200 subway cars for Line 2 through an international tender.

“Most of the subway cars currently in operation are at the end of their service life, and we opted for international bidding so as to reduce the purchase costs by means of open competition,” it explained.

Seoul Metro is going to limit the bidding to the 43 WTO Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) member countries, including 27 E.U. member countries, Korea, Canada, Finland, Hong Kong, Japan, Norway, Switzerland, U.S., Singapore, and Israel. China has not acceded to the agreement.

According to Seoul Metro, the successful bidder is still required to use domestically-produced components in at least 30 percent of the cars.

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