OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann gave a speech to open Open Exchange Day on "Breaking the Barriers: Ensuring Access to Public Procurement Markets" on 27 October 2026 in Paris, France.
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Dear Deputy Director-General Nathalie Berger,
Distinguished guests, colleagues, Friends all,
Welcome to the OECD, and to this Open Exchange Day on "Breaking the Barriers: Ensuring Access to Public Procurement Markets".
Let me start with a simple proposition.
A public contract is only as good as the competition behind it.
Public procurement is one of the biggest things governments do.
It accounts for about 13% of GDP and around 30% of government expenditure across OECD countries.
That is how we buy hospitals, schools, roads, defence equipment, software and vaccines.
In sectors like health, defence and infrastructure, governments are not just one buyer among many. They are the market.
So the way governments buy shapes which firms invest, which firms grow, and which firms walk away.
Getting this right has rarely mattered more.
Public debt in advanced economies has risen from around 73% of GDP in 2007 to more than 110% in 2024.
Interest costs are absorbing a growing share of budgets.
Demands from defence and population ageing keep growing.
Governments cannot simply spend their way through this. They need to make every euro, every dollar and every yen work harder.
More competitive public procurement is one of the most direct ways to do that.
The evidence is clear. Where competition works, it can bring procurement prices down by between 2.5% and 10%. Where it fails and bidders collude, overcharges of around 20% are the norm.
On a market worth 13% of GDP, that gap is not a rounding error. It is the difference between a hospital built and a hospital postponed.
Competition is under pressure
And yet, in too many markets, competition is moving in the wrong direction.
Across the European Union, the share of processes attracting a single bid rose from 23.5% in 2011 to a staggering 41.8% in 2021.
Over the same decade, the average number of bidders per process fell from 5.7 to 3.2.
In other words, four in ten public tenders in the EU now attract just one bid.
We see similar warning signs elsewhere: continued reliance on non-competitive procedures, and growing concentration among suppliers in some sectors.
When bidders disappear, choice disappears. Governments lose the ability to compare options, to challenge prices and to secure the best deal for taxpayers.
And there is a second cost.
Governments increasingly ask procurement to deliver more than value for money: resilient supply chains, innovation, growth in regions that have fallen behind, sustainability and opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises. Just over half of the 40 countries we surveyed in 2024 build such objectives into their award criteria.
None of these goals can be delivered by a market that too few firms are willing or able to enter.
What keeps firms out
So why do firms stay away?
The new OECD policy brief on competition in public procurement, which we are launching today, is clear. It is rarely one big barrier. It is the accumulation of many smaller barriers.
Some firms are deterred before they ever bid. Lengthy registration, heavy documentation and qualification requirements out of all proportion to the contract being tendered make bidding too costly, especially for SMEs and new entrants.
Domestic preferences and local content rules narrow the field further.
Fragmented information and little visibility of future demand mean firms cannot plan.
No business will invest in bidding for opportunities it cannot see coming.
Other barriers appear once the tender is live.
Contracts bundled larger than they need to be.
Technical specifications written around a brand rather than a need.
Bidding windows too short to prepare a serious offer.
And some appear after the award.
Late payments that squeeze cash flow.
Contract management that adds cost without adding value.
Unsuccessful bidders who never hear why they lost, and quietly decide not to try again.
Add to that the churn in the rules themselves.
Thirty-six of the 40 countries in our survey changed their procurement framework at least once in five years.
Nearly a third changed it more than eight times.
Reform is sometimes necessary. But when the rules keep moving, and reforms are poorly communicated, firms stop investing in learning them.
It is no accident that governments and business organisations alike rank public administration and procurement as the second-highest priority for cutting regulatory burden.
This matters most for SMEs. They make up 99% of firms and generate between 50% and 60% of value added across OECD economies. If procurement is closed to them, it is closed to most of the economy.
Breaking the barriers
The good news is that every one of these barriers is within our power to remove.
Our policy brief sets out how.
Let me highlight four priorities.
First, design procurement through the eyes of the supplier.
That means choosing the procedure that fits the market, and reserving non-competitive procedures for genuinely exceptional cases.
Specifying outcomes, not brands.
Keeping qualification requirements proportionate to the contract.
Dividing contracts into lots where that opens the door to more firms.
Allowing enough time to bid, and deciding promptly once the bids are in.
Only 16 of the 40 countries we surveyed had simplified their procedures to help SMEs take part.
We can, and must, do better.
Second, plan early, engage early and keep engaging.
Publish procurement plans so firms can see what is coming. Do the market research before the tender, not after. Talk to suppliers, transparently and on equal terms, to understand what the market can deliver.
Spread tenders across the year rather than bunching them before deadlines and holidays, which pushes up single bidding.
And do not stop at contract award. Pay on time. Debrief unsuccessful bidders, because today's losing bidder is tomorrow's competitor.
Only 7 of the 40 countries in our survey regularly hold such debriefings. That is a missed opportunity.
Third, invest in the people on both sides of the table.
Competitive procurement depends on skilled public buyers who can analyse markets, design tenders and manage contracts, backed by competency frameworks and communities of practice.
It depends just as much on suppliers, especially smaller ones, who understand the rules, the e-procurement platforms and their obligations under competition law.
Accessible training and practical guidance for both is one of the cheapest investments a government can make.
Fourth, put data to work, both to open markets and to protect them.
Digital procurement systems now generate rich data on how these markets actually function.
That data can show where participation is falling, where markets are becoming concentrated, where new entrants are getting in and where incumbents are being locked in.
It can also show where bidding patterns point to collusion. Opening markets is not enough if the firms in them do not genuinely compete.
Closer co-operation between procurement and competition authorities, and shared access to high-quality, interoperable procurement data, is how we make sure that collusion never pays.
One caution. No single number tells the whole story. A low number of bids may reflect restrictive practices. It may equally reflect a market with few qualified suppliers.
So we need to read procurement indicators alongside market indicators: concentration, entry, exit and market size. Investigate the causes before acting. And remember that competition is a means to better outcomes, not an end in itself.
In conclusion
Public procurement is how governments deliver. At its scale, it is also one of the most powerful economic levers they hold.
More open, more competitive procurement is within reach of every government represented here. The barriers are known. The tools exist. The data is increasingly there.
What is needed is the decision to look at procurement from the supplier's side, to remove what keeps good firms out, and to act firmly against those who would rig the game.
Above all, we need to make public procurement markets worth competing for.
The policy brief we launch today is the OECD's contribution to that effort. Today's discussion is our opportunity to turn it into action.
My very best wishes for a positive, productive and successful discussion.
Thank you.
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