[Asia Economy (Suwon) = Reporter Lee Young-gyu] Gyeonggi Province has joined hands with the Gyeonggi Provincial Council to develop its own fair procurement system.
On the 15th, Gyeonggi Province announced that it recognized the need to develop its own fair procurement system to resolve the monopoly issue of the Public Procurement Service (PPS) in the procurement market, and decided to actively gather opinions from the Provincial Council to create a reasonable procurement system.
The cooperation between the two institutions was largely driven by Jeong Seung-hyun, Chair of the Council Steering Committee of the Provincial Council.
Chair Jeong said, "When I was a city council member before, I once ordered the local government not to use the PPS's 'Nara Market' system," and added, "When I looked at the purchase details, the prices were higher than the same models sold in the market, and the commission fees were also burdensome."
He further stated, "Regarding these high commission fees, I checked whether the PPS later returns or provides exemptions on purchase usage to local governments, but there was absolutely none."
Chair Jeong especially emphasized, "Most companies register through agents, but even if they are registered, not all are fairly selected to sell products. For example, even if about 100 furniture companies are registered, only about 10 top companies are chosen, and the rest are not utilized at all. Therefore, I believe a fair independent procurement system is absolutely necessary."
Earlier, on the 9th, Gyeonggi Province Governor Lee Jae-myung and Jeong Seung-hyun, Chair of the Council Steering Committee, jointly held an expert meeting titled "Development and Operation of a Fair Procurement System to Improve the Monopoly of the National Procurement System (Nara Market) by Local Governments" at the Gyeonggi Provincial Office.
The meeting was attended by Ahn Byung-yong, Chairman of the Gyeonggi Mayors and Governors Association (Mayor of Uijeongbu), Lee Wang-jae, Deputy Director of the Nara Salim Research Institute, Shin Young-chul, Head of the National Project Monitoring Team of the Economic Justice Practice Federation, Park Kyung-chul, Research Fellow at the Gyeonggi Research Institute, and small business representatives including Choi Jong-won, CEO of Samil CTS, and Kim Ki-tae, CEO of Icomax.
The attendees agreed on the problems of the PPS monopoly and the necessity of a fair procurement system, proposing various improvement measures for this purpose.
On the 2nd, the province announced as its first fair policy in the second half of the 7th local government term the establishment of a "Fair Procurement Organization" (tentative name) and the development of a fair procurement system to replace the PPS's Nara Market.
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