Public Procurement Service "Acts as a Catalyst for Economic Recovery... Responding to the Future Society of Digital and Data"

Infographic material for New Year's work plan. Provided by Public Procurement Service

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] The Public Procurement Service (PPS) aims to take a step closer to complete economic recovery by using public procurement as a catalyst. It is also tightening efforts to transform its structure to respond to future society.

On the 11th, Kim Jeong-woo, Administrator of the PPS, announced the "2020 Work Plan" containing these details at the Government Complex Daejeon.

The work plan focuses on promoting six key tasks based on three major strategies: economic vitality, public safety, and future response.

The six key tasks are defined as ▲ leading economic vitality recovery ▲ implementing procurement prioritizing public safety ▲ realizing social value through public procurement ▲ promoting dynamic innovative procurement ▲ expanding digital and data-based procurement services ▲ and managing state-owned property to eliminate remnants of Japanese colonial rule.

First, the PPS plans to lead economic vitality recovery through the purchasing power of public procurement. To this end, it aims to raise the proportion of procurement contracts in the first half of the year to 63% of the total (34.2 trillion KRW out of 54.4 trillion KRW).

This is an increase of 7.1 trillion KRW (26.2%) compared to the 27.1 trillion KRW procurement contracts signed in the first half of last year. To enhance the execution power of early spending, the PPS is currently negotiating with the Ministry of Economy and Finance to offer up to a 10% discount on procurement fees to public institutions requesting procurement in the first half of this year.

Youth entrepreneurship and job creation through public procurement are also identified as key implementation tasks. Youth entrepreneurship and job creation will be promoted by the PPS collaborating with university and local government startup centers to encourage and support participation in innovative procurement and Venture Nara.

In particular, the PPS plans to allocate at least 10% of the total 46.5 billion KRW budget for purchasing innovative products to youth companies and establish a new scoring bonus (+1 point) for Venture Nara registration to lead youth companies' entry into the public procurement market and youth job creation.

Strengthening the functions of the public procurement sector directly related to citizens' lives and safety is also emphasized. Priority will be given to supplying COVID-19 vaccine booster shots, quarantine supplies, and services; expanding registration of domestically produced medical devices to replace imports in the shopping mall; and ensuring appropriate pricing to facilitate smooth supply and management of health and safety materials. Additionally, efforts will be made to strengthen supply responses for overseas-dependent materials such as urea solution and expand the supply of stockpiled raw materials.

The PPS will also strengthen efforts to implement ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) management, which has recently been emphasized for companies, into public procurement, aiming for the government to realize social value together with companies. Rather than expecting unilateral sacrifice from procurement companies in realizing social values such as environment, employment, welfare, and safety, the goal is to create an environment that benefits these companies and encourage their participation in ESG.

To this end, the PPS will prepare the "(tentative name) Social Value Evaluation Guidelines for Procurement Projects" to promote the introduction of ESG in public procurement. The current bidding scoring method will be changed to a basic scoring system and applied on a trial basis in the field. Furthermore, evaluation criteria related to environment, safety, and job creation will be expanded and newly established in various procurement systems such as excellent procurement products and quality assurance procurement products beyond bid evaluation.

Efforts will also be made to strengthen public procurement support for carbon neutrality and green procurement practices and to realize fairness and win-win values in public procurement.

In response to the rapidly changing external environment due to COVID-19, institutional capabilities will be focused on expanding digital and data-based procurement services. The "Next Generation Nara Market" system will be launched in 2024 to activate digital and data transactions and distribution in the public procurement market. By consolidating and managing scattered procurement statistics and data, the main goal is to widely disclose and utilize public demand procurement information needed by companies.

Additionally, the PPS plans to revitalize the innovative procurement market by increasing the pilot purchase budget for innovative products to 46.5 billion KRW (24 billion KRW in 2019) and the cumulative number of designated innovative prototype companies to over 500 (66 in 2019) this year.

Kim Jeong-woo, Administrator of the PPS, said, "This year, the PPS's capabilities will focus on 'complete economic recovery' and 'realizing public procurement that prepares for the future.' To implement these two major tasks on a large scale, we will strive to actively engage with procurement demanders and carry out procurement policies."

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