(1) A procuring entity shall carry out 2-stage tendering where —
(a) it is not feasible to fully define the technical or contractual aspects of the public procurement to elicit competitive bids; or
(b) due to the complex nature of the goods, other services or works to be procured, the procuring entity wishes to consider various technical or contractual solutions, and to discuss with tenderers the relative merits of those variants before deciding on the final technical specifications and public procurement contractual conditions.
(2) In the first stage, the tendering documents shall —
(a) outline —
(i) the purpose,
(ii) the expected performance,
(iii) the broad specifications of the equipment or works to be procured, and
(iv) the qualifications required to perform the public procurement contract; and
(b) call upon tenderers to submit —
(i) technical tenders without a tender price, and
(ii) comments on the proposed public procurement contract conditions.
(3) The procuring entity may engage in discussions with any tenderer with a view to understanding a technical tender or to indicating changes required to make it acceptable and seeking the tenderer's willingness to make such changes.
(4) At the end of the first stage, the procuring entity may —
(a) reject a tender which does not, and cannot be changed to meet the basic requirements, minimum performance, or required completion time or has any other weakness which makes the tender substantially non-responsive; or
(b) modify the technical specifications, evaluation criteria, and contract conditions in order to maximise competition and articulate appropriate evaluation methodology in order to consider various options provided by tenderers.
(5) In the second stage, the procuring entity shall invite tenderers whose tenders have not been rejected to submit final tenders with prices to the revised tendering documents.