International public procurement : from scant facts to hard data

Abstract

Public procurement is a negotiating area gaining in importance at multilateral and bilateral level, as evidenced by a brief review of procurement provisions in existing trade agreements. The size of procurement spending stands in most developed economies at double-digit percentage points of GDP. However, despite the size and importance of these markets, the factual information available to trade negotiators remains scarce. Although public procurement patterns (e.g. size of procurement markets, composition of procurement spending and level of government procurement) can be derived from traditional national accounts statistics, these figures fall short of capturing the international dimension of public procurement. Hence, the paper puts forward a basic conceptual framework for data collection on public procurement that would best serve the future negotiating agenda in this area.