The Next Generation KONEPS on its First Step to Pioneer Digital Procurement

Preparing for the coming *Metaverse, the Public Procurement Service(PPS) held a briefing session on the Next Generation KONEPS in public-private collaboration.

With the Next Generation KONEPS aimed to be complete by 2024, integration of public procurement platforms has started to get into full swing.

*Metaverse: A collective virtual shared space including the sum of all virtual worlds and the Internet

□ KONEPS is evolving into an intelligent e-procurement platform

▶PPS Administrator Dr. Chungwoo Kim is conversing with participants at the online Next Generation KONEPS briefing session held in a Metaverse setting on August 10, 2021

□ On August 10, 2021, PPS held the Next Generation KONEPS briefing session to completely overhaul the existing KONEPS launched back in 2002, applying latest digital technologies to the new platform

○ The event was hosted at a virtual space in line with a concept of the Metaverse, greatly hailed as one of the cutting-edge digital technologies at the heart of the Digital New Deal project the Korean government has intensively proceeded with

○ Over 100 participants including the PPS Administrator and officials, platform de velopers, private sector experts and KONEPS users had their own avatars at the Metaverse gathering.

□100billion KRW or so (around 85million USD) will have been invested in the Next Generation KONEPS for three years and the said e-procurement system will be launched in early 2024.

* KONEPS(Korea ON-line E-Procurement System)　is a nationally integrated e-procurement system for electronically tackling the entire procurement process including bidding, contracting and payment. Around 500,000 suppliers and 60,000 public organizations use the platform and its annual transaction volume is worth about 113trillion KRW.

□The Next Generation KONEPS project is focused on △ building the user-friendly setting, preemptive application of novel digital technologies and △making the new platform a single procurement window.

○The new KONEPS is expected to boost user convenience and system stability by redesigning the old underlying technologies and overhauling to the UX interface

- It will also realize paperless and ‘Zero-visit’ procurement administration by transitioning to contactless interactions and introducing e-Cabinet with which every document can be managed digitally.

○Moreover, the Next Generation KONEPS will offer the procurement data and services tailored to the given task and user type, taking advantage of digital technologies including AI and Big Data.

- Blockchain technologies will also be introduced to prevent forgery of bidding documents and remove inconvenience of repeated submission of documents for bidding and contracting

□ And the new e-procurement system is to remove the overlapped operation and the subsequent inconvenience by integrating different procurement systems run by 26 public entities into the Next Generation KONEPS

-The system integration will be made in a phased manner with characteristics of each organization largely reflected so that the system integration will not cause any trouble and inconvenience in procurement administration

□The PPS Administrator said, “The set-up of the Next Generation KONEPS is a large-scale national project to shape the coming decade of public procurement markets and the era of digital transformation”

○He also added, “As a large part of the national budget will have been invested in the project and the new KONEPS will greatly affect the national economy, PPS will do its utmost in establishing the Next Generation KONEPS”