7th April 2012
World Trade Organisation's Committee on Government Procurement has adopted the revised Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) on 30th March, 2012, after a final review. The review was consequent to Ministerial Conference decision on 15th of December last year when a historic plurilateral agreement providing for opening up of domestic procurement markets for foreign traders was reached between 42 countries. The revised agreement will now go to the respective parliaments for ratification.
The agreement provides for more transparent set of rules for international public procurement though the respective governments are not expected to open up all of their procurements, and can specifically exclude some sensitive sectors.
The agreement does not automatically apply to all government procurement of the parties but, its coverage is determined with regard to each party in annexes as provided in one of the appendices to the agreement. While China is one of the signatories to the agreement since 1997, India is an observer since 2010 along with 21 other countries some of which are still negotiating WTO accession.
World Trade Organisation's Committee on Government Procurement has adopted the revised Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) on 30th March, 2012, after a final review. The review was consequent to Ministerial Conference decision on 15th of December last year when a historic plurilateral agreement providing for opening up of domestic procurement markets for foreign traders was reached between 42 countries. The revised agreement will now go to the respective parliaments for ratification.
The agreement provides for more transparent set of rules for international public procurement though the respective governments are not expected to open up all of their procurements, and can specifically exclude some sensitive sectors.
The agreement does not automatically apply to all government procurement of the parties but, its coverage is determined with regard to each party in annexes as provided in one of the appendices to the agreement. While China is one of the signatories to the agreement since 1997, India is an observer since 2010 along with 21 other countries some of which are still negotiating WTO accession.