Yu Guangzhou, vice minister from the Ministry of Commerce, has disclosed at a local seminar that China is going to open and publish its government procurement market figures to the outside world.

In addition, the Ministry of Commerce will start negotiations to join the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA). It hopes to be a signatory to that agreement by the end of 2007.

GPA is a guideline document formulated by developed countries under the framework of WTO. It requires all member countries to open their government procurement markets and provide non-discrimination policies for other member countries.

Yu says that China has promulgated and implemented the Government Procurement Law and arranged a basic government procurement framework since its entry into the WTO. It will publish government procurement information on the Internet, offering equal opportunity for Chinese and foreign companies to participate in the bidding.

Chinese Ministry of Finance says this year China will add central and provincial subsidies, state debt projects, public projects, and textbooks at middle and primary schools into government procurement tasks and try to make the national government procurement reach CNY300 billion.