Press Release: Delivering savings for Europe: moving to full e-procurement for all public purchases by 2016

Electronic procurement (e-procurement) refers to the use of electronic communication by public sector organisations when buying supplies and services or tendering public works. Increasing the use of e-procurement in Europe can generate significant savings for European taxpayers. Public entities that have already implemented e-procurement report savings of between 5% and 20% of their procurement expenditure.

The total size of the EU's procurement market is estimated to be more than 2 trillion euro, so each 5% saved could result in about 100 billion euro of savings per year – which is equivalent to building more than 150 large size hospitals. These savings would maximise the efficiency of public spending in the current context of fiscal constraints.

European Commission: Memo/12/265: Frequently asked questions: A strategy for e-Procurement http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/12/265&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

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