Next Year Innovation Procurement Budget Expanded by 30%... 88 New Innovative Products Including 'Automatic Opening and Closing Shade' Designated

The 3rd Public Procurement Demand Discovery Committee

Major Innovative Products Newly Designated in the 3rd Round of 2021 (Source: Ministry of Economy and Finance)

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Son Seon-hee] The government has decided to expand the budget for innovative procurement next year by about 30% compared to this year. In addition, 88 items, including IoT-based automatic open-and-close shade screens that respond to weather changes, have been newly designated as innovative products.

On the 24th, Ando-geol, Vice Minister of Strategy and Finance, chaired the 3rd Public-Private Joint Public Procurement Demand Discovery Committee and discussed and finalized the "4th Quarter Innovative Procurement Major Task Promotion Plan" with these details. The budget for innovative procurement next year is set at 143.4 billion KRW, an increase of 32.4 billion KRW from this year's 111 billion KRW. The budget for R&D linked to innovative procurement was also set at 87.8 billion KRW, nearly a 60% increase from this year's 55.4 billion KRW.

At the meeting, newly designated major innovative products were also introduced. These include IoT-based automatic open-and-close shade screens and wearable walking-assist robots utilizing wearable robot technology.

As of now, a total of 776 innovative products have been designated cumulatively, and to achieve this year's designation target of 900, additional designations are planned during the 4th quarter. The committee expanded and reorganized the existing innovative product designation track to discover and designate innovative products linked to the Korean New Deal project and to designate products currently in use at New Deal project sites as innovative products.

Furthermore, to activate the innovative product procurement system, the incubating field was expanded from the existing environmental sector to the entire public service sector, including safety. The demand discovery target will also be expanded from the public sector to private companies to discover tasks.

In this regard, the "Korea Nara Market Expo," an international comprehensive public procurement exhibition, is scheduled to be held at KINTEX in Ilsan on the 29th.

Vice Minister Ando-geol stated, "We will actively utilize innovative procurement as a stepping stone for a qualitative leap in public services and the fostering of new innovative technologies and industries," adding, "We will focus on discovering demand for innovative products through public-private cooperation and nurturing promising innovative procurement companies."

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