REQUEST FOR DATA ON U.S. FIRMS' ACCESS TO FOREIGN

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 STATE 081678 SENSITIVE SIPDIS FOR ECONOMIC AND COMMERCIAL SECTIONS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ECON ETRD BEXP WTRO SUBJECT: REQUEST FOR DATA ON U.S. FIRMS' ACCESS TO FOREIGN GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT MARKETS ¶1. (U) This is an action request. See paragraphs four and five for action request. 2.(SBU) SUMMARY: The current dearth of information on U.S. sales in foreign government procurement markets makes it difficult to accurately assess the effectiveness of government procurement commitments in trade agreements and could dampen moves to push for further liberalization of government procurement markets. To address this concern, the State Department, U.S. Department of Commerce and the Office of the United States Trade Representative seek information on the number and value of government contracts U.S. companies have won in the past three years in countries where we have government procurement commitments in our international agreements. In addition, any information available demonstrating that a trade agreement made a positive impact on the number of contracts won by U.S. firms would prove helpful. The information will help demonstrate the importance and value of having government procurement commitments in international trade agreements. Posts should not approach host governments regarding this request. ¶3. (U) TRADE AGREEMENT PARTNERS: The United States made international government procurement commitments in the plurilateral WTO Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) and regional and bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs). With the exception of the U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement, all of our free trade agreements have government procurement commitments that give U.S. suppliers reciprocal access to our trading partners' government procurement market and establishes transparent and equitable procedures for conducting government procurements. Besides the United States, the WTO GPA includes the following countries: Canada European Community and its 27 member states (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania) Hong Kong-China Iceland Israel Japan Korea Liechtenstein The Netherlands with respect to Aruba Norway Singapore Switzerland Taiwan became the 41st member in July 2009, but for the purposes of this exercise will not be included in the information gathering. FTA partners with government procurement commitments: NAFTA (Mexico and Canada) Australia Bahrain CAFTA-DR (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic) Chile Israel STATE 00081678 002 OF 002 Morocco Oman Peru Singapore Note: Canada, Israel and Singapore are also parties to the GPA -------------- Action Request -------------- ¶4. (SBU) Action addressees should collect information on government procurement contracts won by U.S. firms and by foreign companies supplying U.S.-sourced goods. Publicly available sources, U.S. companies, local American Chambers of Commerce and/or other associations may offer this information. Please do NOT request the information from host government. Only include contracts valued at over USD 60,000. Please include the date of the contract award (or the year if the date is unavailable),the U.S. company or companies involved, the value to U.S. companies, the name of the government entity that undertook the procurement (if available),a general description of the good or service contract won, whether a trade agreement helped the company win the contract, and whether it involved a joint tender with a local company. ¶5. (U) Delivery: Please e-mail responses by August 28 to Brian Woodward at the U.S. Department of Commerce at Brian.Woodward@mail.doc.gov and Nathan Lane at EEB/TPP/MTAA at LaneNP@State.gov. Please cc the commercial coordinator for your bureau; commercial coordinators are: EAP/EP: MDastin; EUR/ERA: JPurl; NEA/RA: MKelly; and, WHA/EPSC: SGarro. If Post needs more time to provide full information, please send an interim response estimating the date of completion. You may call Woodward (202 482-0375) or Lane (202 647- 9252) with any questions about this request. Upon request Woodward will send a spreadsheet with headings for the information sought. Thank you greatly for your assistance. CLINTON