ChileCompra incorporates new municipalities

The Chilean government's e-procurement site ChileCompra is now managing public purchases from 123 municipalities and expects the remaining 251 to become members by year-end, ChileCompra said in a statement. A trial group of 50 municipalities began working with ChileCompra in June and used the site for more than 27,000 transactions worth over 20mn pesos (US$34,264) during the six-month pilot that ended November 30. As of early December, this first group should start managing all their purchasing processes through the portal. During the trial period, use of the site was optional but only one municipality declined to use the e-procurement site features. Municipalities were requested to train employees and adopt all technologies and processes necessary for the new purchase method during the period. After the first 50 municipalities came on board in June, 73 others signed up in September and generated 30,667 business opportunities from June-November. The most important municipality was Santiago, which published 1,457 processes. Late September Chile's finance ministry awarded the Santiago chamber of commerce (CCS) a contract to manage the database of national suppliers for ChileCompra. This allows state entities to verify supplier details quickly before awarding a tender and helps suppliers keep their information up to date through a single channel. ChileCompra expects to have handled supply tenders worth a total of US$1.5bn by year-end compared to US$945mn in 2003. The site now lists 84,000 suppliers and manages tenders on behalf of 655 entities.