The China Federation of Logistics & Purchasing announced the launch of China Public Procurement's official network China-cpp.com on Saturday. The overall fairness of government procurement can be supervised via the website. This network is expected to become China's biggest trading and service center for electronic transactions, and help realize fairness and transparency in governmental procurements.

According to Cheng Yuanzhong, deputy chief of the Federation, the total size of global public procurement has reached $6 trillion. Public procurement in developed countries accounts for more than 10 percent of their GDP. China's governmental procurement has reached 1.13 trillion yuan ($181 billion), which is about 11 percent of national financial spending. If education, health, properties, transportations and energy are included, the figure is 5 trillion yuan. 

China has become the biggest global market for public procurement. However, the sector is still troubled by a lack of standardization, the obscuring of information, and general inefficiency.

Governmental procurement is different from other ordinary purchasing because governments are not ordinary consumers. The money they spend comes from taxation. In this respect, the mainland's current achievements are far from enough.

In Hong Kong, officials must be Caesar's wife, avoiding even the appearance of impropriety. Chapter 5 of the Code for Principal Officials under the Accountability System in Hong Kong clearly requires that "Principal officials shall avoid putting themselves in a position where they might arouse any suspicion of dishonesty, unfairness or conflict of interest." Former financial secretary Leung Kam-chung was forced to resign for purchasing a car weeks before he raised tax on new vehicles because some people questioned whether he deliberately did it to avoid tax.

In future, mainland public will have higher standards and stricter requirements to supervise governments and officials. With the development of information and communication technology, the public has an increasing number of channels to supervise public spending.

The establishment of the public procurement network is just one step in this process. A growing number of similar methods and systems will be established. Openness, fairness and transparency in government affairs will be achieved in this process.

Governments and officials will gradually get used to the public haggling over every penny. They don't have any choice but to accept a stern public eye.