Public Procurement Service Completely Revamps 'Nara Market' After 18 Years... Establishes Next-Generation System

2020 Public Procurement Service Work Plan Infographic. Provided by the Public Procurement Service

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] The Public Procurement Service (PPS) will completely overhaul the government’s integrated shopping mall ‘Nara Market’ for the first time in 18 years.

On the 18th, the PPS announced the ‘2020 Work Plan’ containing this information at the Government Daejeon Complex. The work plan focuses on six key tasks with innovation, digital, and global as core strategies: ▲achieving and spreading visible results of innovative procurement ▲implementing electronic procurement in response to the digital transformation era ▲activating global market entry of procurement companies ▲creating a procurement market full of vitality, coexistence, and cooperation ▲enhancing transparency and fairness in the procurement market ▲strengthening safety and quality and improving efficiency in national asset management.

In particular, this year the PPS will lead the digital transformation era by expanding data and system openness and sharing through the ‘Next-Generation Nara Market’ project, which introduces intelligent information technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), big data, and blockchain to Nara Market. The annual transaction volume of Nara Market increased from 89.8 trillion KRW in 2018 to 102.8 trillion KRW last year.

The project will begin in earnest next year after forming a dedicated task force (TF) for the full-scale overhaul of Nara Market this year and conducting initial analysis and design. Additionally, the PPS plans to integrate more than 20 of the 26 individual electronic procurement systems, excluding Nara Market, into the ‘Next-Generation Nara Market’ by 2025.

The innovative prototype purchase project, which received positive market responses during last year’s pilot operation, will also be significantly expanded. The PPS will first increase the project budget from 2.4 billion KRW last year to 9.9 billion KRW this year and expand designated products from 66 to 300.

Furthermore, by exempting innovation evaluations for sandbox-approved products, the PPS supports the activation of innovative product purchases across the public sector and changes the recruitment of innovative prototype purchase targets from once a year to continuous recruitment, increasing opportunities for companies to participate.

This month, the PPS will open the ‘Public Innovation Procurement Platform’ as a single window for innovative procurement to share transactions and information on innovative products. The platform will also enable the discovery of innovation demands and proposals seeking innovative and challenging solutions to public life and safety issues.

Support for activating procurement companies’ entry into the global market will also be strengthened. The number of promising companies entering overseas procurement markets (G-PASS) will be expanded to 1,000 by 2021, and direct orders will be supported through bid proposal writing assistance and export strategy company development projects, diversifying entry regions to new southern countries and UN procurement markets.

To this end, the PPS will enhance support effects through various overseas cooperation projects with related domestic ministries and expand international cooperation in procurement with organizations such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

In addition, early execution, activation of participation by startups and venture companies, and regulatory innovation will inject vitality into the procurement market. The plan also includes inducing coexistence and cooperation between large and small and medium procurement companies, and enhancing market transparency and fairness through strong responses to procurement transactions, bid review and evaluation, and unfair practices as major tasks in this year’s PPS work plan.

Jung Moo-kyung, Administrator of the PPS, said, “Last year, the PPS achieved the largest procurement project performance in history, quadrupled the size of Venture Nara, and introduced the innovative prototype purchase project, achieving both quantitative and qualitative growth.” He added, “This year, we will strive to achieve procurement results that the public can feel by focusing on innovation, digital, and global as core strategies.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.