With the introduction of the Prozorro electronic system in Ukraine in 2016, according to the Law on Public Procurement, the public procurement market in our country in 2016 amounted to about 300 billion hryvnia! But this is only as far as Ukraine is concerned, and if you think more globally. Markets with an annual volume of procurement amount to 1.7 trillion. US dollars. It’s possible to take part in foreign tenders!
Taras Shymko, GPA in UA project manager, spoke about participation in tenders of Ukrainian manufacturers, including the furniture industry, during a webinar organized by the Ukrainian Association of Furniture Manufacturers together with GPA in UA. First of all, the webinar was designed to show furniture makers the tools to master the market of foreign public procurement and to demonstrate for them the wide opportunities for such participation.
The GPA is intended to extend the main principle of the World Trade Organization – equal access to markets – to public procurement. This means that foreign companies have full access to Ukrainian public procurement, just as Ukrainians have full access to foreign tenders. In fact, foreigners have had the opportunity to participate in public procurement in Ukraine for a long time, then Ukrainian companies have received this right only since 2016.

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GPA in UA notes that over these 4 years the market has significantly revived and began to actively respond to possible competition for contracts in foreign public procurement markets. Mr. Shymko have defined 8 conditional steps to be followed by companies that have decided to compete for international public procurement. The first step is to determine the country of the tender, search for information about planned purchases. The next step should be to determine the code of the good or service, according to the classifier used in the field of public procurement. Actually, from the fourth step, according to Taras Shymko, a search for a specific tender is already underway, followed by obtaining and studying the tender documentation. The final steps are to ask for clarification from the customer (if necessary) and, accordingly, to prepare and submit a bid. According to him, it is also very real to win one of the tenders today. In Ukraine, there are a sufficient number of successful examples of our companies that have already won foreign tenders. Among the industries where Ukrainian companies have succeeded: mechanical engineering, IT and telecommunications, light industry, furniture, printing, architecture, building materials and vehicles, etc.
In addition, when evaluating candidates, for customers, often the price may not be decisive in choosing future partners. The customer often pays attention to the company’s ability to fulfill its obligations, its integrity, including its attitude to the environment and workers’ rights, as well as compliance with qualification requirements.

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In two real cases of public procurement in the Czech Republic and Norway, Taras Shymko demonstrated the process of participation in tenders, focusing in detail on the important points of each of them. In particular, for the Czechs the price was decisive, and for the Norwegians on the contrary, namely – the credit rating of the company.
An important place was given to the availability of certificates for companies. Here, Mr. Shymko reassured, saying that there are no situations under the GPA from which no way out could be found.

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Of course, participation in any international project is first and foremost a challenge and maximum attention to detail, but at the same time public procurement is an effective tool for companies, especially in times of crisis!