New round of tenders invited for Standing Offer Agreement for supply of IT professional services to government departments
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"The new round of the SOA-QPS scheme introduces several new measures to promote the development of the local IT industry. These include increasing the maximum number of standing offer agreements that can be awarded to allow more service providers to participate in the scheme; lowering the essential requirements for tendering to encourage more local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and start-ups to participate; raising the financial limit of contract value of work assignments to allow larger government contracts to be awarded through the scheme; and introducing a brand-new Category D to promote and expand the wider adoption of diversified secure and reliable technologies in government IT systems. These measures will unleash greater market potential, thereby creating business opportunities for more suppliers to participate in government IT projects," a spokesperson for the DPO said.
Since its initial launch in 2005, the SOA-QPS scheme has always been an important part of the Government's strategy to promote the development of the local IT industry, drive the innovative application of IT, and improve the efficiency and quality of public services. As part of the Government’s IT outsourcing strategy, the scheme has been an effective means of addressing the Government's large demand for IT professional services. It also provides promising business prospects for the local IT industry and helps to bring innovative and creative IT services to government departments. The total value of the contracts awarded in the past four years under the prevailing scheme is over $3.9 billion. It is anticipated that the total contract value of the coming scheme will be even higher.
The new SOA-QPS scheme covers four categories of IT services:
Category A: pre-implementation services, system development, implementation and post-implementation dedicated management services of IT services;
Category B: information security, data privacy, independent testing, independent quality control and quality assurance as well as dedicated management services;
Category C: deployment and maintenance of IT application systems common to government bureaux and departments; and
Category D: services same as Category A but specifically for IT systems adopting diversified, secure and reliable technologies
Category A is further divided into Major and Minor Groups. The demarcation is based on the contract value of work assignment, which has been increased from $3 million to $4 million. The main objective of the setting up of Minor Group is to allow more local SMEs to participate in the government projects while the increase on demarcation limit enables SMEs to participate in more government projects.
The new round of the SOA-QPS scheme also strengthens the regulation and monitoring procedures of contractors' performance by taking into account contractors' performance in contracts awarded under the previous round of the scheme. During the 48-month contract period, government bureaux and departments (B/Ds) may invite contractors in the relevant categories and groups to submit proposals for individual IT projects. Contractors will be selected based on both technical and price assessments. B/Ds will award a service contract to the contractor whose proposal meets the technical requirements and attains the highest combined score according to the marking scheme. Contractors with continuous subpar performance may be suspended by the DPO from further bidding under the scheme until their performance improves.
The tender notice and the tender documents are available for download at the DPO's website (www.digitalpolicy.gov.hk/en/our_work/digital_infrastructure/business_window/tender_eoi_rfp/).
A briefing session will be held on January 16, 2026 for prospective tenderers. Details are set out in the tender documents.
Ends/Friday, January 2, 2026
Issued at HKT 9:30
Issued at HKT 9:30
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