Singapore and Chinese Taipei are both signatories to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Government Procurement Agreement (GPA). The Government Procurement Chapter follows largely the rules of the GPA, therefore companies do not need to worry about any new measures or policies that are required to access either market.
Opening the Chinese Taipei Market
At the moment, Singapore companies can already participate in Chinese Taipei’s government procurement market according to the commitments spelt out in the GPA. Under ASTEP, the Government Procurement Chapter assures Singapore companies that they will be treated on an equal par with the local suppliers for several new areas of market access compared to the GPA.
Chinese Taipei has reciprocally lowered its threshold for procurements by its central government entities from SDR 130,000 to SDR 100,000. (The thresholds are expressed in IMF Special Drawing Rights. The conversion from SDR to S$ is revised every two years. Please refer to WTO website for the conversion rates). It has also given Singapore access to 3 new Special Municipalities, which were not offered at the GPA, namely New Taipei City, Taichung City and Tainan City. It effectively means that procurements undertaken by all 5 Special Municipalities of Chinese Taipei are now open to Singapore companies for participation and these ensure that Singapore companies are treated on an equal footing with the local companies. Singapore companies can also look forward to participating in new areas such as procurements in waste water management, cloud computing and infrastructure.