The new procurement strategy of the City of Helsinki places a stronger emphasis on the responsibility and impact of procurements. The three main themes of the procurement strategy are functional markets, promotion of innovations, impact, responsibility, procurement management and procurement skills.

“We are embracing our role as a major market operator, clarifying the management of our procurement activities, and improving the production and utilisation of procurement data. We aim to engage city residents, businesses and other interest groups in the preparation of procurements more than before, in addition to elevating our procurement expertise to the highest level possible,” says Procurement Director Jorma Lamminmäki in reference to the goals set in the procurement strategy.

The updated procurement strategy takes into account the City’s key strategic documents, action plans and development programmes, such as the Helsinki City Strategy, Carbon-neutral Helsinki 2035 action plan, environmental policies and digitalisation programme. The Audit Department’s recommendations in relation to procurements have also been taken into account.

Procurements, i.e. purchases of and investments in internal and external services, materials, supplies and goods, constitute more than 50% of the City’s expenditures. Helsinki’s procurement volume is roughly four billion euros a year. This makes Helsinki Finland’s largest operator engaging in public procurement. In Finland, the total volume of public procurements is about 35 billion euros, of which roughly 30 billion euros is attributable to municipalities.

Helsinki’s procurement strategy was updated concurrently with the preparation of Finland’s National Public Procurement Strategy. The Procurement Finland action plan was used to create a national strategy for public procurement in order to increase cooperation between public procurement bodies and develop the impact of procurements.

Learn more about the updated procurement strategy here. (In Finnish)