Seminar with Ministry of Finance and DG GROW on Government Procurement Agreement (GPA)

2015-12-03 | Beijing

Mr. Lu Yongzhen briefed the participants on the ongoing reform of the Chinese SOEs.

The SOEs will be classified in two groups, those who care for basic needs of the population (e.g. water supply) and need not necessarily be profitable, and those which are normal commercial enteties, competing with private enterprises. The classification shall be completed in 2016. Different criteria for classification apply to SOE under SASAC and those under local governments. Commercial SOEs shall increase their competitiveness to be able to compete on the international market.

Mr. Muylle gave an overview about the chances of China joining the GPA agreement. The GP market in Europe is worth 350 billion Euro. Main targets of accession to the GPA are reduction of costs by international competition and adoption of best practices in public procurement. Costs in the EU could be lowered by 3.8% by establishing an unified EU-wide public procurement system. 

Mr. Muylle suggested to speed up the process of accession, now in its eights year. Ongoing reforms of Chinese SOEs should not be an obstacle to include SOEs in the next accession offer. The EU would like to see two improvements of China's accession offer:

1. Inclusion of (part of) China's SOEs

2. Less exceptions