Easing Public Contract Procedures... Doubling the Limit for Small-Amount Private Contracts

Hong Nam-ki, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance (center), Eun Sung-soo, Chairman of the Financial Services Commission (right), and Park Young-sun, Minister of SMEs and Startups, are briefing on the results of the 1st Emergency Economic Meeting at the Government Seoul Office in Jongno-gu, Seoul on the 19th. Photo by Kim Hyun-min kimhyun81@

[Asia Economy Reporter Jang Sehee] The government has decided to ease public contract procedures to facilitate rapid public procurement. Accordingly, the limit for small-value sole-source contracts that can be purchased without bidding will be doubled, and emergency bidding orders will be mandated temporarily until December.

The Ministry of Economy and Finance announced these details during the briefing of the 4th Emergency Economic Meeting on the 9th.

First, the limit for small-value sole-source contracts that can be purchased without bidding will be doubled. For goods and services, the limit will be raised from 50 million KRW to 100 million KRW; for comprehensive construction, from 200 million KRW to 400 million KRW; and for specialized construction, from 100 million KRW to 200 million KRW.

Additionally, to facilitate emergency sole-source contracts related to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), 'prevention and containment of infectious diseases' will be added as a reason for sole-source contracts. Sole-source contracts will be allowed even after one failed competitive bidding, shortening the contract period by about 10 days. Furthermore, the range of items on the Korea ON-line E-Procurement System (KONEPS) will be expanded, and the review and registration period will be shortened from 12 weeks to 8 weeks.

Also, emergency bidding orders will be mandated temporarily until December. Through emergency bidding, the bidding announcement period will be shortened from a maximum of 40 days to 5 days.

On-site explanations conducted during the construction bidding announcement period will be omitted in principle, and face-to-face evaluations such as proposal assessments will be converted to online evaluations. For construction projects under 1 billion KRW, the qualification review period will be shortened to within 4 days, and the evaluation criteria will be simplified by about half.