The transfer of the E-Procurement Pilot System (EPPS) was held in Hanoi on September 4 as part of a 3.37 million USD project funded by the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA).

The system will be used by the Hanoi People’s Committee, the Electricity Group of Vietnam (EVN) and the Telecommunications and Post Group for the first test run from 2009-11. In the next step from 2011-15, the system will be gradually expanded to public and administrative agencies and State-owned businesses before applicable to all economic sectors.

The EPPS has been designed on the basis of the e-bidding system of the Republic of Korea, adjusted to conform to the needs of Vietnam, and at the highest possible level of security, said the Samsung SDS Company.

As the main contractor of the project, the RoK company has undertaken the design and development of the system, which focuses on e-bidding during the test-run.

With this technology, a series of steps required by traditional bidding entailing complicated paperwork will now be performed automatically through just one registration form each from bidders and tenders, said Samsung.

The Head of the Auctioning Department under the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI), Dang Huy Dong, said the automation of the bidding steps through the EPPS will help reduce the costs of transactions and transport and save time.

In Vietnam, public purchase constitutes some 40 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) and EPPS-based e-bidding will help reduce that by between 10 and 20 percent of that total, Dong said.

He added that opportunities for corruption will also be diminished by the system’s transparency, making it easy for the public to access necessary information and services.

Joining the system, tenders may sell bidding forms to bidders shortly after publishing bidding invitations, without having to wait for a certain period of time as they did previously.

Such advantages will help boost the competitiveness of the bidding process in terms of both quantity and quality, Dong explained, concluding that the project would also help facilitate relations between Vietnam and the RoK./.