Visitors look around booths prepared for the Korea Public Procurement Expo 2023 at KINTEX in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, in this April 2023 photo. Newsis

Public Procurement Service (PPS) Vice Administrator Baek Seung-bo / Courtesy of PPS

Under the slogan "Powerfully, Quickly K-procurement! Beyond Korea to the world," Korea Public Procurement Expo 2024 is set to be held at KINTEX in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, from Wednesday to Friday. Since its inception in 2000, this year marks the 24th anniversary of the expo. It is the only domestic event in the public procurement sector, which has shown continuous growth and broken records in terms of participating companies, visitors and export performance. Participating companies are promising small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) actively supplying the public procurement market, which represent 97 percent of Korea's manufacturing firms, vital to the Korean economy.

SMEs often face difficulties in finding markets for their new technologies and products, despite significant efforts. In response, the Public Procurement Service (PPS) has focused its policy to strategically utilize Korea's annual public purchasing power of 200 trillion won ($143 billion) to alleviate these challenges. The PPS implements various procurement schemes tailored to the technological level, product characteristics and growth stages of SMEs. They include "excellent procurement," "innovative procurement," "multiple supplier contracts" and Venture Nara (an online shopping mall dedicated to venture firms).

Additionally, SMEs that have demonstrated competitiveness in the domestic public procurement market are assisted in accessing the global procurement market, which is valued at over $2 trillion, through the designation of "Promising Companies for Overseas Market Entry." This support is crucial as the domestic market, where SMEs already secure over 80 percent of contracts, has become saturated.

Korea Public Procurement Expo 2024 is an essential event that supports the expansion of both domestic and international market opportunities for SMEs. It offers them a prime opportunity to display their newly developed technologies to a wider audience, including procurement officials from Korean public institutions, international procurement agencies and leading private buyers from around the world looking for partnerships. This year, participating SMEs will have the opportunity to conduct business consultations with representatives from approximately 100 domestic public agencies and major corporations, as well as around 90 international buyers.

Especially for this year, the expo will also feature a variety of themed exhibition spaces designed to maximize its impact, including the CES Pavilion for CES award-winning products, the New Growth Pavilion highlighting innovative products and several joint pavilions in collaboration with entities like the Ministry of National Defense, Gyeonggi Province, the Korea Expressway Corp. and the Korea Institute of Startup & Entrepreneurship Development.

It is also expected to help them in accessing the international procurement market. It's typically challenging for lesser-known SMEs to secure direct interactions with foreign buyers, international organizations and foreign procurement officials. During the expo, there will not only be export consultation sessions between the SMEs and foreign buyers, but also dedicated presentations by representatives from international organizations and foreign procurement agencies, explaining their procurement processes. Additionally, a program organized in partnership with the International Network of Korean Entrepreneurs (INKE), affiliated with the Korea Venture Business Association, will provide explanations and support for entering foreign procurement markets, enhancing opportunities for SMEs to expand globally.

There's a saying, "The significance of the present is in looking towards the future." Korea Public Procurement Expo 2024 serves as an excellent platform for SMEs engaged in our public procurement market to display the current standards, competitiveness and potential future growth of their self-developed technologies and products.

I hope many procurement officers from public agencies and representatives from large and medium-sized enterprises attend this expo. This would not only support the market expansion of promising SMEs but also provide insights into the latest trends in technology and products, offering opportunities to gain strategic insights and explore potential collaborative relationships.

Baek Seung-bo is the vice administrator of the Public Procurement Service.