Common Procurement Vocabulary

The Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV) has been developed by the European Union to facilitate the processing of invitation to tender published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) by means of a single classification system to describe the subject matter of public contracts. It was established by Regulation (EC) No 2195/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV) and amended by European Commission Regulation (EU) No. 213/2008 issued on 28 November 2007. Description CPV codification consists of a main vocabulary which defines the subject of the contract, and a supplementary vocabulary to add further qualitative information. The main vocabulary is based on a tree structure made up with codes of up to 9 digits (an 8 digit code plus a check digit). This combination of digits is associated with a wording that describes the type of supplies, works or services defining the subject of the contract. A Call for Tender is quite often described by more than one CPV Code, aiming to give a better and more detailed description of the object of the contract. Commercial organisations promoting public contracts to their members or readers generally use CPV codes to identify business sectors likely to be interested in specific tenders, along with NUTS Codes which indicate the country and region within which the contract is to be performed. An earlier form of standardised vocabulary in use in the United Kingdom before 1999 was known as the National Supplier Vocabulary. Main Vocabulary classification structure