Public Procurement Service Accelerates Transition to 'Digital Procurement' Including Next-Generation Nara Market Construction

Annual Implementation Plan Data for the Next-Generation Nara Market Construction Project. Provided by the Public Procurement Service

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] The Public Procurement Service (PPS) is accelerating the transition to 'digital procurement' in the post-COVID-19 era, with the next-generation Nara Market as the focal point.

According to the PPS on the 30th, the next-generation Nara Market aims to be completed by 2023. Nara Market is the national integrated electronic procurement system used in the public procurement market worth 100 trillion KRW annually. The newly built Nara Market will incorporate digital new technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, cloud, and blockchain.

Through this, the PPS expects to enhance user convenience while increasing transparency and fairness in procurement administration.

In particular, in the post-COVID-19 era, the next-generation Nara Market is expected to act as a catalyst accelerating digital transformation. This is in the context that many demand institutions and procurement companies will be able to freely use non-face-to-face services through a unified electronic procurement window, which is a core infrastructure of public procurement.

Additionally, the PPS is drawing a blueprint to implement digital innovation growth by building a public distribution-dedicated platform to activate transactions of innovative products and digital services (such as cloud) and by innovating procurement tasks using artificial intelligence and non-face-to-face technologies.

For example, the 'Innovation Market' established in February is a government-wide dedicated mall for innovative products that connects demand and supply to support initial sales channels. Currently, a total of 152 innovative products are registered and traded in the Innovation Market.

The PPS also opened a 'Digital Service Dedicated Mall' this month. Through this, the PPS plans to quickly register digital products such as cloud services selected by the government's 'Digital Service Review Committee' and support convenient purchases by each institution, thereby expanding the public procurement sector.

The PPS's strategy to diversify platforms based on usage purposes centered on Nara Market is interpreted as a calculation to rapidly advance digital transformation in the public procurement market in the post-COVID-19 era.

Moreover, the PPS is increasing its responsiveness to the non-face-to-face and digital era by fully converting major reviews and evaluations conducted in the public procurement sector to non-face-to-face methods and significantly improving the performance and capacity of the online review and evaluation platform, 'e-Ordering System.'

Representative examples supporting this include the 'Construction Job Keeper,' which provides customized job information to construction workers, and 'Robotic Process Automation,' where robots perform standardized procurement tasks on behalf of humans.

Jung Moo-kyung, Administrator of the PPS, said, "The PPS will speedily promote digital public procurement policies in preparation for the post-COVID-19 era while placing greater emphasis on consideration for the digitally marginalized and ensuring fairness. Through this, we will strive to quickly establish a 'digital fair economy' in the public procurement sector."

Meanwhile, the PPS is currently carrying out phased restructuring work to build the next-generation Nara Market, targeting its opening in 2023.

This year focuses on initial analysis and design (ISMP), including business analysis and design, identification of informatization elements, establishing standards for integrating its own electronic procurement systems, and securing related budgets.

Next year, the PPS will undergo a verification process for the integration of its own electronic procurement systems and proceed with preparations for the actual service launch.

A total budget of 132 billion KRW (based on the preliminary feasibility study results) is expected to be invested in building the next-generation Nara Market, with 35.9 billion KRW in 2021, 47.4 billion KRW in 2022, and 48.7 billion KRW in 2023 to be spent respectively.

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