BEIJING - The Chinese government's centralized procurement center helped cut the procurement cost by more than 10.8 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) in the past five years, an official in charge of government purchasing said Friday.

Chen Jianming, head of the Central Government Procurement Center, said in a meeting that centralized procurement over the past five years totaled 64.8 billion yuan from 2006 to 2010, the period of the country's 11th Five-Year Program.

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"Sound cooperation between the center and central state organs in the past five years proved beneficial," said Chen, who called for continued frugality in the following five years.

He said more efforts should be made to improve the system of centralized procurement, optimize procedures and gain a better balance in procured goods' quality and prices.

He also called for an effective daily supervision system as well as an array of professional, high-level procurement teams.

This year, the center will improve its online bidding and purchasing system and promote online tendering and billing with "enhanced transparency" of government procurement, Chen said.

Li Baorong, deputy director of the Government Offices Administration of the State Council, said the procurement system must be improved to better serve both the country's economic growth mode and its building of "cost-saving state organs."

Established in 2003, the center is a procurement agency for central government departments and other state organs.