This practical example demonstrates how local content elements are incorporated into the tender document, serving as a reference for applying local content regulations when preparing tenders;

Table No. 1: Tender Example

In the tender document, the evaluation criteria distribution must total 100%, divided into:

• Technical Evaluation Criteria (which includes local content)
• Financial Evaluation Criteria

Step 1:

Project managers and local content specialists in government entities work on the tender document to define the weight of the technical and financial criteria. In this tender, the weights are defined as follows:

• Technical: 60%
• Financial: 40%

Step 2:

When working on the technical evaluation, the project manager refers to the Local Content Regulations Table for government tenders in the ICT sector. Based on the defined project budget, the following are determined:

• The appropriate methodology to be followed in the tender.
• The weight assigned to local content in the evaluation criteria.
• The required elements in the local content plan.

In this example:

Since the project budget is OMR 330,000, the methodology for projects valued between 250,000 – 3,000,000 OMR must be applied, and the weight assigned to the local content evaluation criterion is 30%, which forms part of the technical evaluation, as shown in the following table:

Table No. 2: Technical Evaluation Criteria

Step 3:

Local content criteria are addressed in detail by adding the local content elements to achieve the weight allocated to local content in the current example (30%), as shown in Table No. 3.

The following steps illustrate the process:

Local content elements include:

1.      Omanization

•  At the company level: compliance with Omanization requirements according to the Ministry of Labour certificate.
•  At the project level (in this project: 40%).
•  Commitment to the mandatory list of Omanized jobs.

2.      Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs)

• Compliance with the mandatory list, with priority given to the specified categories.
• In this tender, the award goes to local companies with priority given to the specified categories: local tech startups, local micro, small, medium, and large tech companies.
• If contracting with large, Gulf, or international tech companies, a minimum of 20% subcontracting must be awarded to the specified categories.

3.      Local Supplier Development

o   Achieved: if contracting with the following categories:

•  Local tech startups
•  Local small and medium tech companies

o   Not Achieved (Required): companies must implement a Vendor Development Program if they belong to the following categories:

•  Local large tech companies
•  Gulf tech companies
•  International tech companies

4.      Digital Goods and Products

o   Compliance with the mandatory list of goods, with priority for locally developed and manufactured products (the list is currently being prepared).

5.      Investment

o   Not required for the specified budget.

Table No. 3: Tender Example

It must be ensured that the local content elements listed in the table above are aligned with the main Local Content Framework table.

It must be clearly stated in the tender document that:

• Any bids that do not meet the local content requirements will be excluded.