Dialogue on Public Procurement 2017
Public Procurement Conference with Moscow Government
November 17, 2017
Last month, Brook Horowitz, CEO IBLF Global, along with Nikolai Akimov of Moscow Public Administration University (MGUU) and Boris Tkachenko of IBLF Russia was in Moscow to facilitate a conference on "Government and Business: a Dialogue on Public Procurement".
This was a new format for the annual conference on public procurement, organised by Moscow Government, which IBLF Global have been involved with for the last few years. This year, it was attended mostly by companies which actually use the e-procurement system. Moscow and Federal government officials and leaders of business associations such as the Russian Chamber of Commerce were on stage to engage in the dialogue with the business community.
Although companies are bidding, it was recognised that there is scope for making the system more accessible, more transparent and more open to competition. Some companies do not know where to go for information about SME finance, or how to make a complaint in case of unfair practices. Training of companies - especially SMEs - in how to use the system could bring positive results.
Despite the many challenges still remaining in public procurement to achieve what was referred to as "a platform of trust" , this dialogue - which was genuinely open and constructive - provided a good starting point.
