There were 4,356 public procurements in H1, up 145% from one year earlier. Their value fell 6% to HUF 708.8 billion.

Construction investments accounted for 55% of the value of the public procurement projects, up from 46.6%.

Municipalities accounted for 37.1% of the value of the public procurements. Public sector organizations took second place with 32.5%.

The major increase in the number of procedures is due to the fact that simple procedures also appeared in the statistics from April last year, while such procedures were not included earlier.

Open procedures accounted for 18% in terms of the number of procedures and 49% in terms of value.

The number of negotiated procedures took second place, making up 9.7% of procedures in terms of the number of procedures and 24.4% in value terms.

Micro-, small and medium-sized businesses won 79.2% of the procedures compared to 72.5% one year earlier.

The number of complaints submitted to the Public Procurement Arbitration Board (KDB) rose to 533 in the first half of 2010 from 337 in H1 2009. KDB found infringements in 208 cases and levied fines of HUF 205 million.

Bakonyi noted that if last week's amendment to the public procurement act is officially announced, a new Public Procurement Council must be appointed within 16 days. (MTI-ECONEWS)