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Plain-language guides to NUPCO, Etimad and Saudi government tenders, written for the suppliers who bid on them and kept up to date.
The National Unified Procurement Company: what it is, how its tenders work, how a supplier bids, and what breaks on its portal and how to fix it.
NUPCO (the National Unified Procurement Company) is the Saudi government-owned company that buys medicines, medical devices and supplies for the Kingdom's public health sector, and runs the tenders through which suppliers sell them. It publishes its tenders on its own supplier portal, not on Etimad.
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NUPCO tenders are published on the NUPCO supplier portal, each with a numbered item list of medical products. A registered supplier downloads the tender's bid response file, prices the items it can supply, and uploads the file with its documents before the closing date; NUPCO then publishes the award results.
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Most NUPCO portal problems, from a tender that will not open, to a blank frame, to a Submit button that does nothing, to an upload that imports zero items, come from the SAP SRM technology the portal is built on and a handful of browser and file settings. Here is each symptom, its cause and the fix.
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The NUPCO bid response file is the Excel workbook you download from a tender on the NUPCO supplier portal, fill for the items you are bidding on, and upload back. NUPCO pre-fills the item columns; you fill the price, VAT, Change Option and product columns, and the file must keep its original structure.
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NUPCO publishes the results of its tenders as award-result files listing, for each item, the winning vendor, the manufacturer, the country of origin and the catalog number, usually as a preliminary result and then a final one. Prices are rarely published, but the files still show who wins what, with which product.
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Saudi Arabia's government procurement platform: what it is, how tenders are run on it, and how it differs from NUPCO.
Etimad is the Saudi Ministry of Finance's electronic platform through which government entities publish their tenders, receive bids, award contracts and pay suppliers. Every company that wants to sell to a Saudi ministry or government agency registers on Etimad, buys the tender documents there and submits its offer through it.
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Etimad is the Ministry of Finance's platform for general government procurement across ministries and agencies; NUPCO is the company that buys medicines, medical devices and supplies for the public health sector on its own portal. A medical supplier usually needs both: NUPCO for the products, Etimad for everything else.
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The whole picture for a medical supplier: who buys, through which platform, and what you need before your first bid.
The terms that recur in NUPCO and Etimad tenders, in Arabic and English.
ProcDuck indexes every NUPCO and Etimad tender down to the line item, alerts you when one matches your products, and fills the NUPCO bid files for you.