Scottish and Irish governments have renewed contracts with procurement service provide Millstream to provide national e-procurement databases to the two governments.

The extended contracts are worth around £250,000 and come just weeks after the Aberdeen-based company won a £4.8million deal to run a similar portal in Norway for the next seven years.

A number of European governments and public authorities now handle procurement electronically in order to save money and time and to comply with the latest EU legislation. John Swinney MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth, has praised the portal as “one of the finest innovations that Government has brought forward, making it easier for SMEs to access Government contracts”.