ESTUDIOS Y ANÁLISIS: DOCUMENTOS DE TRABAJO

Relación entre el comercio de servicios y los compromisos en materia de contratación pública, sobre la base de los Acuerdos de la OMC pertinentes y ACR recientes

To date, government procurement has been effectively carved out of the main multilateral rules of the WTO system. This paper examines the systemic and other ramifications of this exclusion, from both an economic and a legal point of view.

In addition to relevant elements of the WTO Agreements, particularly the Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) and the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), it derives insights from a large number of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) that embody substantive provisions on both government procurement and services trade. An important finding is that, from an economic perspective, general market access commitments with respect to services trade and commitments regarding government procurement of services are complementary and mutually reinforcing. In contrast, from a legal point of view and at the multilateral level, disciplines in the two areas have been "divided up" into two Agreements with different (but complementary) spheres of application: the key provisions regarding the scope of application of the GATS and the GPA make clear that each serves purposes that the other does not. Analysis of corresponding provisions of RTAs broadly supports and extends this finding. In light of the foregoing, a question arises as to possible ways of deepening disciplines in this area. Part 5 sets out, for reflection, several related options: (i) the built-in mandate in the GATS for negotiations on services procurement (Article XIII:2); (ii) "multilateralization" of the GPA; (iii) the reactivation of work in the (currently inactive) WTO Working Group on Transparency in Government Procurement; and (iv) the taking up of relevant issues in the context of bilateral or regional negotiations. Overall, we find that each of these possibilities has potential merits, though none is without related challenges.

 

N°: ERSD-2014-21

Autores: Robert D. Anderson, Claudia Locatelli, Anna Caroline Müller, and Philippe Pelletier

Fecha de redacción: noviembre de 2014

Palabras clave:

Agreement, Budget, Commercial Policy, Corruption, Developing Countries, Developing Country, Development, Economic Integration, Expenditure, GATT WTO, General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, Government, Government Expenditures, International Trade Agreements, International Trade Organizations, Liberalisation, Liberalization, MFN, Multilateralism, Openness, Optimal Trade Policy, Policy, Policy Making, Protection, Protectionism, Protectionist, Public Economics, Public Expenditure, Public Finance, Public Works, State Finance, Trade, Trade Agreements, Trade Liberalization, WTO.

Código JEL:

F13, F15, F5, F53, F59, H5, H57, H7, H72, K2, K29, O1, O24, O29

volver al principio

Declinación de responsabilidad 

Este es un documento de trabajo y se refiere, por consiguiente, a un estudio en curso. Refleja las opiniones de sus autores. No pretende reflejar la posición o las opiniones de la OMC o de sus Miembros y se entiende sin perjuicio de los derechos y obligaciones de los Miembros en el marco de la OMC. Los errores que puedan existir son responsabilidad de los autores.

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