How to deliver a turnkey project abroad

1. 1

   Discover

   Step 1: Find the project and qualify to bid

   Many public projects abroad are funded by development banks and tendered under their rules. The World Bank runs a suppliers’ hub and a listing of business opportunities for the projects it funds, and publishes procurement notices¹. Follow projects from their procurement plans and early notices, not only from the invitation to bid, so you have time to form a team. The bid goes to the borrower that runs the procurement, not to the bank².

   Read the rules that apply before you commit. For World Bank-funded projects they are the Procurement Regulations for IPF Borrowers, seventh edition of September 2025: the borrower runs the procurement with the Bank’s standard documents, joint ventures may bid, one firm may not submit more than one bid, and debarred firms are excluded².

   For large or complex contracts, turnkey and design-and-build among them, the borrower may prequalify bidders on their experience and their balance sheet, and may ask for a new prequalification if more than 12 months pass before bids are invited². Prequalify with the team that will bid: where the project is beyond your size or experience, bring in consortium or joint venture partners now.

   What this step produces

   • A pipeline of projects, with the notices and the borrower’s contacts
   • A checklist of the procurement rules
   • A prequalification submission, with references that match its criteria

   Common mistake: Tracking only invitations to bid, and missing the procurement plans that come before them.

   You do this step yourself

   Promote:Global has no tender search, holds no tender notices and does not prepare a prequalification. A market’s page lists official trade and investment bodies for the country, to contact directly.

   Markets

2. 2

   Prepare

   Step 2: Prepare and submit the bid

   Large, complex turnkey plants may be tendered in stages: a first stage on a concept or a performance specification, with discussions, before the final priced bids². Get quotes from the equipment suppliers and local subcontractors you will rely on, and price the risks you will carry: a lump sum is fixed unless the contract provides for adjustment, so ground conditions, customs, currency and inflation belong in the price.

   Price the local tax too. Under the OECD Model Tax Convention, a building site or construction project that lasts more than 12 months generally creates a permanent establishment, a taxable presence, in the country, and the treaty and the local law decide how your payments are taxed⁶.

   Include the bid security. Under the World Bank’s rules it is a bank guarantee, which may come from a bank in any eligible country, with a local bank making it enforceable where needed, or a bid-securing declaration where the borrower allows one².

   What this step produces

   • The technical bid and the priced bid
   • Supplier and subcontractor quotes
   • The bid security or bid-securing declaration

   Common mistake: Underpricing risks such as ground conditions, customs and inflation.

   With Promote:Global

   On a turnkey project, Search for possible partners has no default counterpart, so it looks on the open web for whoever you describe, such as equipment suppliers or civil works contractors in the country, for 1 AI action; each result is a lead to check, and Promote:Global checks no firm. For the equipment you will ship, Export check gives the duty in the country, with its source and year, and Landed cost adds freight, insurance, duty and tax; both are free. Promote:Global does not arrange bid security.

   Finding connections Export check and Landed cost

3. 3

   Prepare

   Step 3: Arrange the guarantees

   Beyond the bid security, owners usually ask for an advance payment guarantee, a performance guarantee and a retention or warranty guarantee, generally issued by banks as demand guarantees³. Read the wording before your bank issues anything: the amount should reduce as the work is delivered, and each guarantee should end on a fixed date.

   What this step produces

   • Advance payment, performance and retention guarantees

   Common mistake: Signing guarantee wording with no fixed expiry, or with no reduction as the work is delivered.

   You do this step yourself

   Promote:Global does nothing about bonds or guarantees. Arrange them with your bank.

4. 4

   Prepare

   Step 4: Confirm the funding and plan your cash

   Find out how the owner pays for the project, from its own budget or with a development bank’s funding, and what has to happen before each payment is released: your milestone schedule depends on it.

   Then plan your own cash through the project. You buy equipment and pay subcontractors before the milestone payments arrive, and banks usually want cash collateral for the guarantees, which ties up working capital. An export credit agency can reduce that: the US Export-Import Bank’s program, for example, lets an exporter use eligible inventory to collateralize 25 percent of the undrawn amount⁵.

   What this step produces

   • A cash plan for the project
   • A facility agreement with your bank

   Common mistake: Running short of cash because the collateral for the guarantees ties up working capital.

   You do this step yourself

   Promote:Global does not arrange funding, credit or guarantees. Plan the cash with your bank and, where it helps, your country’s export credit agency.

5. 5

   Prepare

   Step 5: Negotiate the contract and its milestones

   FIDIC’s Silver Book, the conditions for EPC and turnkey projects (second edition, 2017), is the standard form. The contractor designs against the employer’s requirements and carries the most risk; there is no independent engineer, and the employer’s representative, who administers the contract, has no duty of neutrality. Under the Red Book, by contrast, the employer designs and the contractor builds⁴.

   Tie each payment milestone to progress you can show, such as approved designs, equipment delivered to site or tests passed, and match the milestones to your cash plan. Then check the delay damages, the performance tests, the caps on liability, the change and claims procedures with their notice periods, and the governing law and disputes clause.

   What this step produces

   • The signed contract, with its particular conditions
   • A milestone and payment schedule

   Common mistake: Accepting unamended terms that put unforeseeable risk on you.

   You do this step yourself

   Promote:Global does not draft, review or negotiate contracts and gives no legal advice. Use counsel who know FIDIC and the country.

6. 6

   Prepare

   Step 6: Complete the design and procure the equipment

   Complete the detailed design against the employer’s requirements, which under the Silver Book is the contractor’s responsibility⁴, and submit it for review where the contract asks. Order the equipment and place the subcontracts on terms that carry the main contract’s deadlines, tests and warranties down to each supplier. Register locally where the work requires it, and secure the permits before anyone mobilizes to site.

   What this step produces

   • Approved designs
   • Purchase orders and subcontracts
   • Local registrations and permits

   Common mistake: Subcontracts that leave a supplier’s delay or defect with you alone.

   You do this step yourself

   Design, procurement and permits are yours; Promote:Global does not register companies or apply for permits. Find service providers lists construction, legal and corporate, and accounting and tax firms that list themselves, where one is listed for the country.

   Service providers

7. 7

   Grow

   Step 7: Ship the equipment and clear it through customs

   The equipment crosses at least one border on its way to site. Agree in the contract and the purchase orders who exports, who imports and who pays the duty and import taxes, with an Incoterms rule on each supply contract, and check whether the country relieves equipment for the project from duty. Each consignment needs its export documents and an import declaration, and a missing document holds the equipment at the border while the schedule runs on.

   What this step produces

   • Export and import documents for each consignment
   • A delivery schedule matched to the work schedule

   Common mistake: Leaving it unclear who imports the equipment and who pays the duty.

   With Promote:Global

   The project’s corridor plan carries the equipment across the border: the duty and landed cost, the export document pack, booking the freight and the shipment. Export check gives the duty in the country and the documents a shipment needs, by stage, with who issues each, as guidance, not a customs ruling. Find service providers lists logistics and freight, and customs and compliance firms that list themselves; Promote:Global does not file declarations or book freight.

   Projects Export check

8. 8

   Grow

   Step 8: Build and install

   Mobilize to the schedule, manage the subcontractors on site, and install the equipment. Keep a record of every instruction, delay and variation, and give notice of each claim within the contract’s deadline: a late notice can cost you the right to more time or money.

   What this step produces

   • A work schedule and progress reports
   • A register of notices and claims

   Common mistake: Missing notice deadlines on delays or variations.

   You do this step yourself

   Building and installing are yours and your consortium’s. Promote:Global does not manage construction or contract claims.

9. 9

   Grow

   Step 9: Test the plant and hand it over

   Run the tests on completion and the performance tests the contract sets, and read those clauses closely, because they decide what happens if the plant falls short. Train the owner’s staff, hand over the operating manuals and the as-built documents, and obtain the taking-over certificate.

   What this step produces

   • Test records
   • The taking-over certificate
   • As-built documents and operating manuals
   • Training records

   Common mistake: Leaving the owner’s staff untrained at handover, so early faults turn into warranty disputes.

   You do this step yourself

   Testing and handing over are yours; Promote:Global does not manage commissioning. Keep the test results and the handover list as notes on the step, where Meridian reads them when you ask about the project.

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    Grow

    Step 10: Close out the warranty

    Through the warranty or defects period, repair what fails and keep a record of each repair. At its end, obtain the final certificate the contract names, agree the final account, and have the retention paid and the retention or warranty guarantee released³.

    What this step produces

    • The final certificate
    • The final account
    • Retention paid and guarantees released

    Common mistake: Not asking for the retention and the release of the guarantees when the period ends.

    You do this step yourself

    Promote:Global does not track warranties, retention or guarantees. Keep their dates as a note on the project, where your team can see them.

The duty, origin and certificate steps are looked up from your product’s HS code and the two countries, so their number depends on what you sell and where. A step with a condition in brackets appears only where it applies. In your own project, each step names your product and your countries. Building the plan uses no AI action.

On a project, Search for possible partners looks on the open web for whoever you describe, ranked by fit, for 1 AI action. A result is a lead to check before you contact anyone, not a confirmed partner.

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