Perspective of the Chairman of the WTO Committee on Government Procurement, Nicholas Niggli (Switzerland)

Summary

I believe that, in the coming decade, the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) will undergo a transition from being an important but relatively obscure plurilateral treaty to becoming a central pillar of the multilateral trading system. This reflects a confluence of factors, including: (i) the growing membership of the Agreement, and the prospect of accession to it by a broad range of developing, transition and other economies in the coming years; (ii) the prospect of a gradual broadening, over time, of the extent of Parties' procurements that are actually covered by the Agreement, in addition to an updating of the Agreement itself to enhance its flexibility, user-friendliness and relevance, for example, to developing countries; and (iii) the role that public infrastructure investment will undoubtedly continue to play as an underpinning of growth in the aftermath of the economic crisis, and the critical importance of such spending being undertaken on the basis of principles of fair and open competition to maximize value for taxpayers.

While the third factor noted above is largely exogenous to the work of the WTO Committee on Government Procurement, the first and second fall directly within its remit, and have been the focus of intensified effort by Parties to the Agreement, in addition to myself as Chairman, and with the support of the Secretariat, in the past few years.