코로나시대의 공공조달법제에 대한 고찰

In response to COVID-19 pandemic, fast delivery of health & medical equipments like mask, test-kit, negative pressure isolator, and protective equipment for medical staff are emphasized. This shows the importance of public procurement law in preventing and challenging epidemic diseases. Public procurement law can also contribute to give assistance to enterprises which are struggling in this emergency situation. Korean public procurement law issues which are related with COVID-19 are direct contracting, unit-price contract, modification of contract price, Small & Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) R&D assistance program. Various government agencies such as Public Procurement Service, Ministry of Drug and Safety, Ministry of Strategy and Finance, and Ministry of SMEs and Startups. In April 1, 2020, European Commission issued a ‘Guidance from the European Commission on Using the Public Procurement Framework in the Emergency Situation related to the COVID-19 Crisis’ and published report on The Role of Research and Innovation in Support of Europe’s Recovery from the COVID-19 Crisis. UK Cabinet Office published Procurement Policy Note for 4 times to respond to COVID-19 Crisis. Although EU and UK entails well-organized public procurement law system, they are struggling in fast delivery of health & medical equipments. In this context, Korean experience gives lessons to other countries in following points: 1) facilitating R&D in health and medical sector and its linkage with public procurement system is important, 2) active role of central procurement agency and efficient operation of electronic procurement system is crucial. However, EU and UK’s experience also shows lessons to Korea in following points: 1) Korea should not solely depend upon the direct contracting, and take transparency and value for money more seriously in the future, 2) Korea should focus more on R&D support to high profile health and medical industry.