A Chinese bus manufacturer is offering the government a "buy one, get one free" promotional offer to secure the bid to supply Bangkok with 489 natural-gas buses should the current deal with bid winner SCN-CHO fall through.
The firm can supply 489 buses for 3.4 billion baht and the same number again for free, said Gao Kezhung, vice-president of Guizhou Guihang Yunma Automobile Industry Co, which makes the Yunma brand of buses.
This would undercut SCN-CHO's offer by more than 1 billion baht, according to one source with knowledge of both bids.
The Chinese firm did not compete in the previous round of bidding because it failed to meet the since-dropped condition that participants must be joint ventures with a Thai company as co-investor.
"Yunma is a state enterprise fully owned by the Chinese government," Mr Gao said.
The company plans to build an assembly plant in Thailand to make at least some of the buses and transfer the technology to local engineers and workers, he added.
Mr Gao made the remarks yesterday after sending a petition to Deputy Transport Minister Pailin Chuchottaworn seeking a response to the offer he made last month to supply the Bangkok Mass Transit Authority (BMTA) fleet on a government-to-government (G2G) basis.
Even though a winner has already been announced, Mr Gao said Yunma is ready and waiting in the wings if another cancellation materialises.
The BMTA awarded the contract to Bestin Group in September last year only to revoke it this April after it failed to deliver the buses on time after the Customs Department suspected it of dodging import taxes.
The bus fleet plan has been in the works for 11 years.
SCN-CHO is the only other bidder to have named its price, which the BMTA source said was 4.4 billion baht.
Jiangxi Kama Business Bus Co, another Chinese operator, will also be involved in the deal, the source added.