Public Procurement Policy in South Korea: Approaches to Sustainable Development and Anti-corruption

Abstract

Due to the scope of procurement in the public sector, public procurement policy has the potential to shape the behavior of market actors and promote the growth of businesses with socially relevant characteristics. This chapter looks at the public procurement process in South Korea as well as the implementation of the country’s e-procurement system. Public procurement is vulnerable to corruption in various ways, and Korea’s KONEPS e-procurement system has reduced corruption in the procurement process by increasing transparency, the persistence of data, and the probability of detecting irregularities. Second, this chapter explores how Korea has increasingly incorporated sustainable procurement principles into procurement policy, attempting to foster innovative and environmentally friendly companies, as well as those led by individuals belonging to socially disadvantaged groups. The chapter concludes with a discussion of some of the historical and organizational factors underlying Korea’s successes in public procurement in order to better understand the extent to which currently developing countries can draw upon the Korean case to improve their own procurement policies.