Public Procurement Service, 201 Billion KRW Budget for Next Year... New Emergency Procurements Including Urea Solution Added

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] The Public Procurement Service announced on the 6th that its business budget for next year has been confirmed at 201 billion KRW. The confirmed budget is 67.2 billion KRW larger than this year's 133.8 billion KRW.

The Public Procurement Service plans to use the confirmed budget mainly for projects such as purchasing supply chain vulnerable materials and warehouse construction design (49.1 billion KRW, newly reflected), next-generation Nara Market construction project (36.8 billion KRW, a 59.7% increase from the previous year), public procurement of innovative products (46.5 billion KRW, a 4.5% increase from the previous year), and relocation of the Seoul Regional Procurement Service building (2.8 billion KRW, newly reflected).

The supply chain vulnerable materials-related projects will focus on the urgent procurement of materials such as urea solution, which has recently faced notable supply difficulties, and the design of new warehouses to expand government stockpiles.

The Public Procurement Service is currently working jointly with related ministries to prepare measures to prevent a second urea solution crisis and plans to actively utilize the budget allocated for next year to prepare for cases requiring urgent purchase and stockpiling to stabilize supply and demand.

Additionally, they are exploring ways to support public market routes when switching items that have been dependent on imports to domestic production.

The next-generation Nara Market construction project centers on a complete overhaul of the outdated current Nara Market system (opened in 2002) into a system based on digital new technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, and cloud computing.

This project began in June this year and aims to launch in 2024. A total budget of 100 billion KRW is expected to be invested in the project, with 23 billion KRW and 36.8 billion KRW allocated for this year and next year, respectively.

The public procurement of innovative products project is considered one of the core projects that the Public Procurement Service is focusing on. The project budget increased from 44.5 billion KRW this year to 46.5 billion KRW next year. Through this, the Public Procurement Service plans to regularize the matching between innovative products and public institutions next year and streamline procedures to strengthen the pilot purchase project of innovative products.

They are also drawing up plans to fully launch projects such as the ‘Innovation Procurement Incubating’ project, where experts specify public innovation demands, and the ‘Innovative Product Scouter’ project, which discovers new innovative products.

The relocation of the Seoul Regional Procurement Service building is being promoted as part of the ‘8.4 Real Estate Supply Plan’ announced in August last year. The Public Procurement Service plans to prepare a temporary office by the second half of next year to enable the start of public housing construction in 2023 by utilizing the current Seoul Regional Procurement Service building site.

Kim Jeong-woo, Administrator of the Public Procurement Service, said, “The recent urea solution crisis reaffirmed the necessity of minimum supply chain management to stably supply materials related to public life and safety,” and added, “The Public Procurement Service will do its best to stabilize the supply and demand of supply chain vulnerable materials by fully utilizing the raw material stockpiling projects conducted so far and the newly reflected emergency purchase budget.”

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