The government has set the ball rolling for allowing foreign vendors to participate in government procurements in India. The Government e-Marketplace (GeM), the public procurement portal, is planning to launch global tender through the portal, most likely in the current financial year.
It is to be noted that India has agreed to allow UK businesses to participate in government procurement under the recently concluded India-UK trade agreement. Under the agreement, UK firms can now bid for tenders, and those with just 20% UK content will be treated as 'Class 2 Local Suppliers' under India’s Make in India policy. This could increase competition for Indian suppliers without them getting a similar access in the UK.
As a result of the FTA deal, UK businesses will gain access to India’s public procurement market — covering goods, services, and construction — with new access to about 40,000 tenders worth EUR 38 billion annually. So far the government has kept foreign companies out of the government procurement process. But the UK trade deal changes this.
Officials at the GeM said that the UK FTA is one of the reasons for the government procurement portal to start working on the global tender facility. However, CEO Mihir Kumar said that the global tender feature was at work, and the same would have been launched even without the UK treaty.
The GeM portal has facilitated 2.8 crore orders worth over Rs 13.4 lakh crore. The platform has over 1.64 lakh buyers and 4.2 lakh sellers offering more than 10,000 product categories and 330+services