The agreement was revised in March 2012 and also expanded the supply it covers. It entered into force on 6 April 2014 after reaching the threshold for adoption by two-thirds of the parties on 7 March 2014. It has no expiration date. The WTO Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) is a „plurilateral“ agreement, meaning that it applies to a number of WTO Members, but not to all Members. Any enterprise from a signatory country wishing to sell goods or services covered by the GPA to a contracting entity from another signatory country listed in Annex I to the GPA may benefit from this Agreement. The World Trade Organization estimates that the value of government procurement opportunities covered by the agreement amounts to several hundred billion dollars per year. For the full text of the revised GPA and the new annexes setting out the markets covered by all GPA Parties, see GPA-113. Signatories to the GPA are required to publish summary notices on procurement opportunities for contracts covered by the agreement. Each member has identified publications in which these opportunities are published. The publications are listed in Annex II (off-site link). Many procurement options are also published electronically. The World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement, commonly known as the GPA, establishes a framework for government procurement rights and obligations among WTO Members that have signed it.
The signatories agreed that suppliers of goods and services in other signatory States will not be treated less favourably than domestic suppliers in the contracts covered by the agreement and that their laws, regulations and procedures relating to government procurement will be transparent and fair. The GPA is a plurilateral agreement and applies only to WTO Members that have agreed to be bound by it. Under the Agreement, each signatory (usually referred to as the „Party“) sets out in a „coverage plan“ which procurement activities are governed by the Agreement. A Contracting Party shall not be required to treat the goods, services and suppliers of other Contracting Parties, but not of non-Contracting Parties, in a non-discriminatory manner. The current signatories of this agreement (as of April 2014) are: Armenia, Canada, Chinese Taipei, the European Union – whose Member States are Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands (including Aruba), Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom – Hong Kong, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Norway, South Korea, Liechtenstein, Singapore, Switzerland and the United States. Any other government that is a member of the WTO may accede to this Agreement on the terms agreed between that government and the current signatories. The Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) is a plurilateral agreement under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO) that regulates the purchase of goods and services by the parties` authorities on the basis of the principles of openness, transparency and non-discrimination. The text of the agreement contains rules to ensure an open, fair and transparent playing field in public procurement.
However, these rules do not automatically apply to all procurement activities of each party. Rather, coverage plans play a crucial role in determining whether or not a procurement activity is covered by the agreement. Only procurement activities carried out by the companies concerned that purchase listed goods, services or works of a value above the established thresholds are covered by the agreement. These schedules are accessible to the public here. The following WTO members are parties to the 1994 Agreement[3] To be covered by the GPA, government procurement must meet minimum value thresholds. .