Belarus receives observer status in the WTO Committee on Government Procurement
On 27 June 2018 the meeting of the Committee of the World Trade Organization on Government Procurement took place in Geneva. Belarus delegation at the meeting was headed by Mr. Arthur Karpovich, First Deputy Minister of Antimonopoly Regulation and Trade.
Participants of the Committee with one voice decided to grant Belarus observer status in the Committee. The United States, the EU, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland, Singapore, Moldova, Canada, Norway expressed their support to Belarus. Thus, the Republic of Belarus became the first country which was granted this status before joining the WTO and received the right to participate in the discussions at the Committee on Government Procurement.
For reference: The WTO Agreement on Government Procurement is a multilateral treaty with a limited number of participants and regulates the procurement of goods and services for public use. 47 WTO Member States, including the EU, the USA, Canada, Switzerland, Japan, Korea, etc., are parties to the Agreement. Among the EAEU Member countries only Armenia is a party to the WTO multilateral Agreement on Public Procurement. Russia and Kyrgyzstan are negotiating to join the treaty. Kazakhstan plans to launch similar negotiations in 2019.
Mr. Arthur Karpovich thanked the participants of the Committee for their support and noted that WTO experience in the sphere of effective regulation of the public procurement sector and introduction of the best world practices in this field is very useful for Belarus. The head of the Belarusian delegation informed the participants of the Committee on the regulation of the government procurement market in Belarus, presented a report on the latest developments at the legislative level in this area.
In accordance with the WTO procedure, negotiations on Belarus accession to the Agreement on GovernmentProcurement shall begin after the Belarus becomes a member to the WTO.
On the site of the Committee, the Belarusian delegation held a number of bilateral meetings with representatives of the WTO Secretariat and WTO Members, and participated in a seminar organized by the WTO Secretariat and the EBRD on the accession of new countries to the Agreement on Government Procurement.
WTO and the EBRD agreed to organize a regional seminar on government procurement in Minsk in September 2018.
