Public Procurement Service Focuses Support on SMEs Facing COVID-19 Financial Difficulties

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Jin-hyung] The Public Procurement Service (Administrator Kim Jung-woo) is implementing economic quarantine measures targeting small and medium-sized enterprises facing difficulties due to the spread of COVID-19.

According to the Gwangju Regional Public Procurement Service on the 2nd, the Public Procurement Service decided to apply "temporary contract special measures," including shortening advance payments and subcontract payments to within 5 days from the application date.

They will exempt various sanctions such as penalties for delayed delivery, imposition of liquidated damages, and forfeiture of contract deposits, and also promote extensions of delivery deadlines.

Public sales channels using non-face-to-face methods will also be supported. They aim to induce public demand with sales of the startup and venture company product mall "Venture Nara" reaching 120 billion won by the end of the year, and plan to expand the "Nara Market Win-Win Sale" event.

In September, they will form a "Miju Procurement Market Development Team" to hold consultation meetings with overseas buyers, and by the end of the year, jointly with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency, they will hold a "Public Procurement Export Consultation Meeting."

They are reviewing reflecting the increase in raw material prices in delivery unit prices, and for construction materials, they will monitor price fluctuation trends frequently in addition to the biannual regular surveys to reduce burdens.

Credit and loan conditions for stockpiled raw materials will also continue until price stabilization. The credit release limit has been increased by 50% from 2 billion won annually to 3 billion won, the credit release interest rate adjusted from 2?4.2% to 1?4%, and the overdue interest rate from 16% to 10%.

The loan period for stockpiled raw materials has also been extended from a maximum of 6 months to 9 months.

Kim Jung-woo, Administrator of the Public Procurement Service, said, "Considering the spread of COVID-19 and the economic situation, we plan to provide various supports with swift and flexible responses, including strengthening support policies to alleviate the management difficulties of small and medium procurement companies," and added, "We will actively reflect field voices in procurement administration so that public procurement can help ease the management difficulties of procurement companies."

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