[Anchor]

It has been confirmed that a defense contractor won a cutting-edge weapon project worth 49.6 billion won in government budget with a bidding price of just 1 won.

Participating companies submitted bids of only 1 won despite taking on immediate losses. Defense Specialist Reporter Kim Taehun investigated exclusively why this is happening.

[Reporter]

Multi-purpose unmanned vehicles designed to perform missions such as fire support and casualty evacuation in combat zones without allied casualties.

They must be equipped with performance capabilities including a cargo capacity of over 400kg, a top speed of over 40km/h, and a driving range of over 100km on a single charge.

Our military is running a pilot project investing 49.6 billion won to deploy around 40 multi-purpose unmanned vehicles to the Army.

Hanwha Aerospace and Hyundai Rotem competed to secure the project, and when the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) received proposals last month, it was confirmed that both companies had written down the exact same bidding price of 1 won.

A key official from the Ministry of National Defense told SBS, "For domestic procurement projects worth less than 50 billion won, there is no lower limit on prices, so the companies identically submitted 1 won, the lowest possible amount."

The official added, "The price scores, which account for 20 percent of the evaluation, came out completely identical, and Hanwha won in the technological evaluation, which accounts for 80 percent."

In a 2020 project worth 3.8 billion won to purchase two multi-purpose unmanned vehicles, both companies proposed 0 won, which was the lowest bidding price at the time.

Back then, there was no technological gap between the companies, so Hyundai Rotem ultimately became the contractor through a game of rock-paper-scissors.

After DAPA banned 0-won bids, this time they submitted 1-won bids.

This is because securing the project first is more important than immediate losses.

[Um Hyo-shik / Director of Defense Industry Security, Korea Defense and Security Forum: If you win the pilot project, the subsequent main project becomes guaranteed, and it also serves as a reference when exporting overseas, so even if a company throws away 49.6 billion won right now, it is profitable.]

Since the penalty a company must bear in case of delayed delivery or quality issues is calculated based on the contract amount, the government needs to improve the phenomenon of 1-won bidding.

DAPA is considering improving the system to set a lower limit of 80 to 90 percent of the estimated price even for procurement projects under 50 billion won.

(Photo: Kim Hyun-sang | Video by Jeong Sunghoon | Graphics by Lee Ga-jin)