Kuwait’s legislative assembly has approved a new law for public tenders, which will will have an impact on the award of multi-billion dollars worth of public sector projects every year.

The process of amending the previous tender law has taken almost three decades. In its new form, the law for the first time will allow foreign companies to take part in public projects without a local agent as was the requirement for more than a half century, according to local Kuwait Times. The law also reforms the process of awarding projects by allowing the Central Tenders Committee (CTC) to pick up the second lowest bid if it is technically better.

The CTC board has been expanded, under the new regulation, to seven members – three of whom will be replaced every two years. The law also exempts oil rigs and exploration and military procurements from the need for prior supervision, the paper said without elaborating.

The Kuwaiti Assembly has also began debating the budgets and final accounts of government departments and authorities and approved five of them on 15 June.

Kuwait’s budget deficit for the 2016-17 fiscal year has risen to around KD12bn (39.83bn) on the back of the sharp decline in oil prices , according to Adnan Abdulsamad, the head of the assembly’s budgets committee, The committee, he said, tried to slash budget allocations but the cuts have been way below the targets due to lack of cooperation from ministries and government departments.

Parliamentarians later approved the budgets and accounts for the Development Bank, Public Authority for Housing Welfare, the Central Bank, Public Institution for Social Security (PIFSS) and the newly-established Transport and Roads Authority.