This paper explores the practice of governments imposing domestic content-based requirements known as “offsets” on suppliers in order to secure public procurement contracts. Known to cause distortions in international trade, offsets are forbidden under the WTO’s Government Procurement Agreement and in the procurement chapters of several RTAs, although these restrictions have severe limitations with full offset prohibitions only accepted by a handful of developed countries. Given the sensitivity of procurement policy and the need to stimulate local economies, Asian countries in particular show an unwillingness to address offsets in their international agreements. While other WTO agreements restrain the use of local content rules, these regimes are ill-suited to control the harmful effects of offsets in a procurement context because of their focus on traditional commercial markets. The paper suggests that an enlargement of offset prohibitions would be advisable given the expected expansion of global procurement markets commensurate with economic development.

中文翻译：

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附条件的政府采购：世界贸易组织和区域贸易协定对抵消的不平衡控制

本文探讨了政府为确保公共采购合同而对供应商实施被称为“补偿”的基于国内内容的要求的做法。众所周知，抵消会导致国际贸易的扭曲，但在 WTO 的政府采购协议和一些区域贸易协定的采购章节中，抵消是被禁止的，尽管这些限制有严格的限制，只有少数发达国家接受完全的抵消禁令。鉴于采购政策的敏感性和刺激当地经济的需要，亚洲国家尤其不愿意在其国际协议中解决抵消问题。虽然其他 WTO 协议限制使用本地内容规则，这些制度不适合在采购环境中控制抵消的有害影响，因为它们侧重于传统商业市场。该文件建议，鉴于全球采购市场的预期扩张与经济发展相称，扩大抵消禁令是可取的。