./.WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONWT/WGTGP/4
31 October 2000
(00-4539)
REPORT (2000) OF THE WORKING GROUP ON TRANSPARENCY IN
GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT TO THE GENERAL COUNCIL
1. The Working Group on Transparency in Government Procurement was established by a
decision at the WTO Ministerial Conference held in December 1996 "to conduct a study on
transparency in government procurement practices, taking into account national policies, and, basedon this study, to develop elements for inclusion in an appropriate agreement".
2. The period covered in this report is November 1999 - September 2000.  The work of the
Working Group up to November 1999 is described in the reports of the Working Group for 1997,
1998 and 1999 to the General Council (WT/WGTGP/1, 2 and 3).  The Working Group held formal
meetings on 7 June 2000 and 25 September 2000 under the chairmanship ofAmbassador Ronald Saborío Soto (Costa Rica).  In  addition, two informal meetings were held on
15 November 1999 and 17 April 2000, respectively.  Reports on the formal meetings have been
circulated in documents WT/WGTGP/M/10-11.
1
3. At its June and September meetings, the Working Group reverted to the issues before it on the
basis of the note by the Chair "List of the Issues Raised and Points Made" (Job(99)/6782).  TheChairman also made available, on his own responsibility, an annotated draft agenda which aimed to
facilitate discussion by suggesting issues under each of the substantive agenda items that, in his view,
could be the subject of further discussion (Job(00)/ 3231).  As an auxiliary informal paper for the use
of Members wanting to draw on it, delegates had available to them a revision of the informal note by
the Secretariat, "List of Proposals on Items III-VII of the Checklist" (Job(00)/3276), reflecting the
proposals made on items III-VII in a succinct form, which identified the source of the different
proposals and summarized the written and oral comments on these proposals.  The Working Groupheard views on each of the items in the note by the Chair, "List of the Issues Raised and Points
Made", namely:  (i) definition and scope of government procurement;  (ii) procurement methods;
(iii) publication of information on national legislation and procedures;  (iv) information on
procurement opportunities, tendering and qualification procedures;  (v) time-periods;
(vi) transparency of decisions on qualification;  (vii) transparency of decisions on contract awards;(viii) domestic review procedures;  (ix) other matters related to transparency;  (x) information to be
provided to other governments (notification);  (xi) WTO dispute settlement procedures;  and
(xii) technical cooperation and special and differential treatment for developing countries.
4. At these meetings, the Working Group also had before it:  a proposal by the United States for
a work programme for coordinating international technical assistance with implementation of apotential agreement on transparency in government procurement (WT/WGTGP/W/28);  a note by the
Secretariat summarizing the information that had been made available to the Group on the technical
cooperation activities of intergovernmental organizations in the area of government procurement
(WT/WGTGP/W/29);  a non-paper by Switzerland entitled "Why the Scope of a Future Agreement on
Transparency in Government Procurement Should Cover Goods and Services" (Job(00)/5645);  and a
note by the Secretariat identifying the various issues involved in concessions and BOT (build-operate
                                                     
1 WT/WGTGP/M/11 to be circulated shortly.WT/WGTGP/4
Page 2
and transfer) contracts from the perspective of their treatment or not as a form of government
procurement (Job(00)/5657).
5. The IMF, the World Bank, the United Nations represented by the United Nations Commission
for International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), UNCTAD and the ITC have observer status in the
Working Group.  During the period covered in this report, the Working Group considered requests forobserver status from OECD, SELA and OIC (the Or ganization for Islamic Conference) and agreed to
revert to these requests in light of the consultations on this matter by the Chairman of the
General Council.
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