Two-thirds of the parties to the GPA were required to accept the Protocol of Amendment before the revised GPA could enter into force. This condition was met when Israel approved the protocol a couple of days back. The other countries that have accepted the revised agreement include Liechtenstein, Norway, Canada, Chinese Taipei, the US, Hong Kong, the European Union, Iceland and Singapore. Japan is expected to join the group soon.
Forty three countries are members of the GPA currently. Ten other members - Albania, China, Georgia, Jordan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Montenegro, New Zealand, Oman and Ukraine - have applied to join. Five members - the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Mongolia, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan and Saudi Arabia - have provisions regarding accession to the agreement in their respective WTO accession protocols. The WTO has said that the revised agreement also incorporates improved transitional measures to facilitate accession to it by developing and least-developed economies.
The GPA ensures that signatories do not discriminate against the products, services or suppliers of other parties to the agreement with respect to the government procurement opportunities that are opened to foreign competition. The agreement also requires transparent and competitive purchasing practices in the markets covered.
The WTO has said that the possible gains in market access could come from numerous government entities being added to the scope of the GPA and from new services and other areas of public procurement activities being included in its expanded coverage.
The agreement's text has been streamlined and modernised to include, for example, standards related to the use of electronic procurement tools. Other changes include a new provision relating to the prevention of corrupt practices in the parties' procurement systems. The revised GPA also reinforces the scope provided by the original agreement to promote the conservation of natural resources and to protect the environment through the application of appropriate technical specifications.
India's participation in the GPA has been a matter of discussion within the industry and policymakers for some years now. There is a consensus that India should not be a party to the agreement since there is nothing very significant for the Indian industry to gain while the access it will provide to other countries will be huge. However, given the latent interest, India has taken an observer status in the agreement for the last few years.
Given the fact that the issue of market access remains a dynamic situation, there is a need for industry to keep a close watch on the possible gains from this agreement. It will be important to see if the revised agreement provides any further market access opportunities for countries that are parties to the agreement. The numbers that have been touted are large and are worth pursuing. However, it remains to be seen if these numbers really fructify.
From the government perspective, there is a need to look at the revised agreement to check if there are any changes needed in the process of procurement if India were to become a member of the GPA in the near future. A complete assessment may need to be done to check if the government will also gain from the process of joining such an agreement by helping contain its expenditure and keep deficit under check.
Small industry has been wary of India joining the GPA while some of the large industry players have evinced interest in undertaking a study to see if such an agreement will be of any use. However, a study undertaken by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development a few years before showed that the gains for India would be minimal and it would not be worth undertaking the obligations of the agreement.
Industry may, nevertheless, want to take another close look at the revised agreement since many other countries are looking, and in the long run India would not want to lose a possible market access opportunity to other competing nations.
The writer is Principal Adviser at APJ-SLG Law Offices