Smartening public procurement as policy instrument

Editor's note: Public procurement is a powerful driver of domestic demand. China Daily spoke to Huang Dongru, director of the Public Procurement Research Center, Guangdong University of Finance and Economics, on the role of public procurement in economic development. Below are excerpts of the interview. The views don't necessarily represent those of China Daily.

The recommendations for formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) aim to eliminate bottlenecks that hinder the development of a unified national market and address longstanding problems in public procurement. Future reforms will therefore focus on unifying market rules, improving the business environment, breaking administrative monopolies, strengthening smart regulation, enhancing project quality and promoting the free flow of production factors. The goal is to ensure that public procurement consolidates the vast domestic market, improves fiscal efficiency and unleashes the innovative vitality of market players.

Procurement policies should be more closely aligned with national industrial strategies. Through measures such as priority procurement and innovation-oriented cooperation, public procurement can provide stable early-stage markets for emerging industries, such as new energy, artificial intelligence and quantum technology. This will help reduce research and development risks for enterprises, accelerate technological iteration and speed up large-scale application.

This demand-driven model of public procurement complements the traditional supply-side policies. Clear signals from the public procurement market will guide social capital and innovation resources toward key areas that are urgently needed by the country.

The focus on digital development will sharpen over the next five years. In the field of public procurement, digitalization is not simply about moving offline processes online, but about a profound transformation in governance. The call to accelerate the development of the digital economy signals that the procurement process will be deeply integrated with new-generation technologies such as blockchain, big data and artificial intelligence.

Blockchain-based tamper-proof traceability will help safeguard integrity in public procurement, big data analyses will enable real-time monitoring of market dynamics and trigger early warnings against bid rigging and collusion, while AI-assisted evaluation will help process complex bids more efficiently and objectively.

A smart public procurement ecosystem featuring end-to-end digitalization, data sharing and intelligent oversight will significantly reduce the possibility of rent-seeking, lower institutional transaction costs and build a robust technological safeguard against corruption, making the procurement process transparent and fair.

The central authorities have also proposed boosting green development and common prosperity, which will affect public procurement. Green procurement standards will become increasingly stringent and widespread, with mandatory or preferential purchasing of energy-saving and environmentally friendly products, and a larger share of procurement allocated to new energy and circular economy products. This will promote coordinated carbon reduction across both production and consumption, guiding the green and low-carbon transformation of the industrial structure.

Meanwhile, the social policy role of public procurement will be further strengthened. An array of new measures will greatly support enterprises from less-developed regions, organizations employing people with disabilities, businesses founded by veterans and micro and small enterprises. In this way, public procurement can serve as an effective tool for promoting balanced regional development, protecting the rights and interests of specific groups, and enhancing social inclusion. It will thus evolve into a policy instrument for fulfilling social responsibility and advancing shared development.

In areas involving national security and core technologies, China will firmly uphold the principle of self-reliance and strengthen relevant management mechanisms. By striking a balance between high-level opening-up and security-oriented development, the aim is to build a procurement and supply chain system that is both globally integrated and resilient.