The number of single-bid public procurement contracts started to drop in the third quarter this year, “a positive development” from the point of view of commitments Hungary has made to the European Commission in connection with EU funds, the Public Procurement Authority said on Thursday. The total value of public procurement contracts amounted to 3,628 billion forints (EUR 8.8bn) in the first nine months, up almost 50% on the same period in 2021, the authority said in a statement. In January-September this year, 5,896 public procurement procedures were concluded, slightly up on the same period in 2021. According to the authority’s data, the proportion of single-bid procurement procedures calculated under EU methodology dropped to 26.8% in August and to 26% in September from between 34% and 48% during the earlier period of the year.
The authority said in the spring that it would devote special attention to the control of public procurement procedures in an effort to improve their effectiveness, and the authority will declare a procedure invalid if only a single bid has been submitted. Hungary has undertaken to permanently reduce the proportion of single-bid public procurements to below 15% for procurements using EU and domestic monies by the end of 2024, the authority said. It noted in a positive trend that micro, small and medium-sized businesses, “the engine of the growth” for Hungary’s economy, won 1,784 billion forints in total awarded in 4,986 procurement procedures during the first nine months.