Tashkent: South Korea’s Public Procurement Service (PPS) and Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Economy and Finance have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to enhance cooperation in public procurement. The agreement was finalized during a bilateral meeting held in Tashkent last Friday, as announced by the PPS on Monday.

According to Yonhap News Agency, the meeting featured discussions between PPS Administrator Lim Ki-keun and Uzbekistan’s Deputy Minister of Economy and Finance Gulnora Rakhimova. The MOU aims to facilitate the sharing of public procurement system information, including electronic procurement. It also seeks to provide necessary data for the establishment and improvement of electronic procurement systems and to boost corporate participation in the public procurement market.

Lim Ki-keun’s visit to Uzbekistan follows earlier bilateral talks with Rakhimova, which took place during the International Procurement Workshop organized by the Asian Development Bank and the PPS in Seoul in September of the previous year. In a statement, Lim emphasized the significance of the agreement, noting that it builds upon an MOU signed with Kyrgyzstan last year, which has already initiated full-scale exports of electronic procurement systems. The new MOU is expected to further expand South Korea’s public procurement cooperation within Central Asia.