WSK Stories of the Month - Korea’s Online Procurement System Going Abroad

The Public Procurement Service (PPS) is one of Korea’s central administrative bodies that provides public institutions with materials, facilities and services from supplying companies that they need. With the rapid spread of the Internet and Korea’s advanced level of Information Technology, the nation’s procurement system, also, is going online. Furthermore, a growing number of developing countries where issues of budget waste, lack of transparency and corruption are considerable are trying to import! and benchmark Korea’s online e-procurement system.

Procurement officials overseas visit Korea to learn

Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) conducted a training program “Public Procurement System Establishment” for 18 participants from 8 countries including Uzbekistan, Egypt, Morocco, Ghana, Tunisia, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, and Uganda. From September 2 to 18, the participating officials took various courses on the strategy for establishing the e-Government and e-Procurement system.

Costa Rica imports Korea’s e-procurement system

Costa Rica’s e-procurement system which opened in July 2009 was constructed by Samsung SDS for USD 8.3 million. Recently, a total of 9 systems were launched including the electronic bidding, security/authentication, electronic contracts, electronic payments, electronic documents, document distribution and others. Samsung will support the operation until December and then transfer the controls over to ICE (Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad). 

  

With the introduction of the system, the Costa Rican government will be able to operate efficiently through integration, standardization of procurements. Also, it is expected to contribute to the transparency of procurement and the efficiency of the bidding companies.

Laura Chinchilla, President of Costa Rica said, “I am very pleased because the e-procurement system improves the efficiency of public institutions and provides high-quality services of government agencies; it provides equal benefits to all the citizens.” She also thanked South Korea’s embassies and Samsung SDS for their efforts in making the successful launch.

Through the project to spread Korean online procurement system to foreign countries, Korea’s software and IT consulting companies are accumulating their know-how on overseas projects and improving their international competitiveness. Also, efforts are being made to make the Korean e-procurement system a global standard.

Not so many people are aware Korea has an advanced procurement system like this. Promoting it to the world must surely be a way to raise Korea’s brand value!

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                                                                                                                  ⓒ 코리아브랜드

PS: This article is taken from the WSK Newsletter #27. As one of the members of WSK, I have been given task to share this article through my blog.