Procurement conference begins today

A three-day regional conference on innovation in sustainable procurement, hosted by the government's Central Procurement Technical Unit (CPTU), begins in Dhaka today.

The third gathering of its kind, it is geared to increase knowledge and networking of the heads of public procurement departments of eight South Asian countries. The second conference was held in Islamabad in 2014 and the first in Nepal in 2011.

Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal is expected to inaugurate the event -- Third South Asia Regional Public Procurement Conference -- at Westin Dhaka. The CPTU is under the planning ministry's implementation monitoring and evaluation division. The World Bank and the Asian Development Bank are co‐sponsoring the event, CPTU said in a statement yesterday. 

MA Mannan, state minister for finance and planning, and the WB and ADB country directors will also attend the inaugural session, while Finance Minister AMA Muhith will wrap up the conference on Tuesday.

The main objective of the conference is to provide a platform for the public procurement practitioners and stakeholders to share knowledge and experiences to continuously enhance performance. About 50 public procurement policymakers, practitioners, experts and speakers from Bangladesh and other South Asian countries, Europe, the US, Southeast Asia and Canada will be attending the technical sessions.

Pakistan is the current chair of the South Asia Regional Public Procurement Network. Director General of CPTU Md Faruque Hossain will take over as the new chair during this conference. Other development partners in Bangladesh will also attend the conference that will conclude with the adoption of the Dhaka Action Plan.