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US Awards More Procurement to Foreign Firms Than Do Other Countries, GAO Finds

The U.S. awards more procurement to foreign firms than other top-awarding governments party to the World Trade Organization Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) do, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report (here) released March 13. The U.S. opened $837 billion…

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in GPA-covered procurement to foreign firms, while the next five largest GPA parties combined to offer $381 billion in 2010, the most recent year for which data were available, the GAO said. NAFTA parties haven’t engaged in a government procurement data exchange requirement since 2005, the report said. The GAO analyzed WTO and U.S. documents and data related to the GPA and U.S. FTAs, and interviewed Washington and Geneva officials, it said. Among other things, the GAO recommended that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative submit a proposal aiming to improve the procurement reporting by WTO parties to the WTO GPA working group on statistical reporting established by the WTO Committee on Government Procurement, and that USTR restart yearly NAFTA statistical exchanges. USTR didn’t comment.