I wrote the following paper that was widely circulated in September to the EU (Brussels & Beijing), Amcham and other interested parties.
Since then I received an exhaustive reply from the EU Delegation in Brussels (confidential). In short it says Brussels is aware about our concerns.
Are discussions around GPA missing the real issue?
28 August 2010.
by Gilbert Van Kerckhove
Gilbert is chairman of the Public Procurement Working Group of the EUCCC (European Chamber). The views expressed here are his own but have been submitted to th EUCCC.
Good news?
On 17 August 2010 China added 15 government departments under the State Council’s ministries into its latest offer to join the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Chinese and foreign experts point out that SOEs (state-owned enterprises) are not included.
This seems to indicate some misunderstanding on the definition of “government projects” and “government procurement” in China. Some even claim there is no regulation in place for SOE to this effect.
The current negotiations for China to join the GPA could prove to be pointless unless the real stumble block is removed – the duality of the Government Procurement Law (GPL) and the China Bidding Law (CBL). To fight for GPA only might be the wrong battle.
To read the full article, download the pdf document:
100828GPAcomments.pdf