France’s public procurement market stands as a significant economic driver, with an annual procurement budget exceeding €320 billion. This substantial spending encompasses a diverse range of products and services, catering to the needs of various government entities and agencies. To effectively navigate this complex landscape, understanding the key figures and procurement processes is crucial.

Sheer Volume and Economic Impact

The sheer volume of France’s public procurement activities highlights its economic impact. In 2022, the total value of public contracts awarded in France reached an impressive €380 billion, demonstrating the government’s significant role as a purchaser of goods and services. This spending represents approximately 15% of France’s GDP, underscoring its substantial contribution to the nation’s economy.

Diverse Range of Products and Services

The French government procures a wide range of products and services, encompassing various industries and sectors. Some of the key areas of procurement include:

• Construction: Infrastructure projects, such as roads, bridges, buildings, and public transportation systems, constitute a significant portion of the government’s procurement spending.
• IT: The government is a large consumer of IT products and services, including hardware, software, IT consulting, and support services.
• Professional services: A wide range of professional services, including consulting, engineering, legal, and accounting services, are procured by the government.
• Goods: The government procures a vast array of goods, including supplies, equipment, and materials, ranging from office supplies to medical equipment and military hardware.

Recent Notable Procurements

In recent news, the French government has made several notable procurement decisions:

• France’s Largest IT Contract: Capgemini, a French multinational IT services and consulting company, has been awarded France’s largest ever IT contract, worth €15 billion. The contract involves the development and operation of IT systems for the French Ministry of Defence.
• €4 Billion AI Investment: The French government has committed €4 billion to artificial intelligence (AI) over the next five years. This investment will support AI research, training, and application development.
• New Procurement Platform: The French government has launched a new procurement platform called PLACE (Plateforme d’Achats de l’État). PLACE aims to simplify the procurement process for businesses seeking government contracts.

Key Trends Shaping the Procurement Landscape

The French government procurement market is undergoing a period of significant transformation, driven by several key trends:

• Digitization and E-procurement: The government is rapidly embracing digitization and e-procurement, with the PLACE platform playing a central role. This shift is expected to make the procurement process more efficient and transparent.
• Focus on Innovation and Sustainability: Innovation and sustainability are increasingly emphasized in government procurement decisions. Tenders may require suppliers to demonstrate their commitment to these aspects.
• Regionalization and Decentralization: Procurement authority is being decentralized to regional and local bodies, creating a more distributed landscape and local procurement opportunities.
• SME Sourcing: The government is committed to supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by increasing procurement from SMEs. SMEs can capitalize on this by building relationships with procurement officials and developing tailored offerings.
• Internationalization and Cross-border Procurement: The government is expanding its procurement activities internationally, seeking global suppliers and competitive pricing. Businesses with a global presence can benefit from this trend.

GCC Railway Network in Saudi Arabia.

Estimated cost US$250 billion.

With the work continuing the rest of the project, according to the General Secretariat of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) the UAE has completed the implementation of the project on its side up to borders with Saudi Arabia, and other members are completing the necessary requirements to implement the project.

Several steps have been achieved in the project so far, including the completion of several studies, estimates on the number of passengers and goods, and the establishment of the Gulf Railways Authority.

Work is underway to complete the implementation of the project, cost of which was estimated by the economic study at around $15 billion, in member states to train the nationals to operate the project and to cooperate with international organizations with expertise in railways.

The decision to establish a railway project linking the member countries was approved by the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries to facilitate the movement of goods, citizens, and residents within the region, which will also boost the economies.

The planned railway would begin at Kuwait City, pass through Dammam and Al Batha Port in Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Al Ain in the UAE, and then enter Oman through Suhar before terminating at Muscat.

From Dammam, branches will link to Bahrain through the proposed King Hamad Causeway, and to Qatar via Salwa port.

The proposed Qatar–Bahrain Causeway between Bahrain and Qatar will provide additional connectivity.

After entering Bahrain from Dammam, the first station on the line will be at Khalifa bin Salman Port, followed by stations at the Bahrain International Airport and Amwaj Islands.

From Amwaj, the line will head to Qatar.

The total length of the track is estimated at 2,117 km, according to the website of the GCC and the speed of passenger trains is scheduled to be approximately 220 km per hour, and freight trains between 80 to 120 km per hour, using diesel to generate electric power.

The project is estimated to cost US$250 billion.

The GCC railway network will connect the UAE with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman and is expected to be ready by 2024.

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Abujar Gold mine Project in Cote D’Ivoire.

Construction of the Abujar Gold mine project in Cote D’Ivoire.

Amount – $2 billion.

Tietto Minerals has tabled a lovely set of definitive feasibility numbers for its Abujar gold project in Africa that it says will make over A$2 billion in EBITDA over the initial 11-year mine life.

The company has estimated an extraordinary pre-tax net present value of A$1.3 billion for the project and says it can pay back the US$200 million in capital required to build it in less than a year with an off the scale internal rate of return of 115 per cent.

The DFS numbers have significantly outperformed its initially estimated pre-feasibility figures.

Production is now projected to increase by 30 per cent in the first year to a whopping 260,000 ounces and by 20 per cent across the initial 6 years of production to 1.2 million ounces, averaging around 200,000 ounces a year a figure that would place it amongst the mining glitterati if the mine was in Western Australia.

The definitive feasibility study has boosted ore reserves at the project by 68 per cent over pre-feasibility numbers to 34.4 million tones at 1.3 g/t gold for 1.45 million ounces. Interestingly 78 percent of the new reserve now sits at the higher confidence indicated category.

On January 2023, Tietto Minerals, a gold explorer, and developer, has commenced wet commissioning at its Abujar Gold mine Project in Cote D’Ivoire.

A sizable supply of ore has already been set up to supply the processing plant, which the company has already started commissioning.

Abujar should consequently result in a considerable rise in gold production in Cote D’Ivoire in 2023.

Abidjan is one step closer to its objective of raising production to 65 tones of gold by 2025.

The stellar results increased Tiettos initial life of mine inventory, inclusive of ore reserves, to 44.9 million tones at 1.2 g/t gold for 1.7 million ounces of gold.

Tiettos Abujar Gold Project in western Cote D’Ivoire is a mere 30 kilometers from Daloa, the nation’s major regional city and according to the company, this will aid in the projects continued development.

The Abujar gold project includes three continuous tenements over a highly prospective and largely uncharted land package of 1,114 square kilometres.

A 70km gold corridor strikes across each of these tenements.

Life of mine revenues are expected to weigh in at a hefty US$2.87 billion with pre-tax free cash flows contributing US$1.28 billion to the $190 million market capped company.

Market pundits were quick to lap up news of the increased production figures with Tiettos stock touching $0.44 in intraday trading of a closing price yesterday of $0.38.

Notably, it still has a few opportunities to increase its DFS production figures even further including a 30,000m infill drilling program to increase the measured resource and a 5,000m campaign targeting ore reserves below the Abujar pit.

The company also plans to drill 20 exploration targets close to Abujar.

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COVID 19 Crisis Recovery Facility in India.

PROPOSED FUNDING AMOUNT – USD500 million.

Creating A Coordinated and Responsive Indian Social Protection System (ccrisp).

The objective of the program is to strengthen the capability of the state and the national governments in India to respond to the needs of informal workers through a resilient and coordinated social protection system.

This program is proposed under the COVID-19 Crisis Recovery Facility (the Facility) of the Bank and co-financed with the World Bank (WB) as a development Policy Financing (DPF) under WBs policy on Development Policy Financing (DPF Policy).

The proposed program will provide the Government of India (GoI) with budget support to mitigate the severe adverse social and economic impact of COVID-19.

Specifically, the program supports India’s efforts to modernize its social protection system to serve the risks and needs emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, rapid urbanization, structural transformations in the labour market and climate change.

Relieving the social and economic distress amongst the most vulnerable groups affected by the COVID 19 pandemic informal workers, migrant workers and returnee migrant workers is at the core of the operation.

ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL INFORMATION –

The loan will be co-financed with WB as lead co-financier, and the programs environmental and social (ES) risks and impacts have been assessed in accordance with WBs DPF Policy.

AIIBs Environmental and Social Policy (ESP) was designed to apply to investment projects and has no provisions for its application to DPF operations.

Therefore, as permitted by the decision of AIIBs Board of Directors set forth in the Decisions to Support the COVID-19 Crisis Recovery Facility, WBs DPF Policy will apply to this operation in lieu of AIIBs ESP.

This will ensure a harmonized approach to addressing the environmental and social (ES) risks and impacts of the program.

WB has conducted assessments under its DPF Policy to determine whether the proposed operation is likely to

(i) cause significant social consequences and poverty levels (especially on the poor and vulnerable sections of the society), and

(ii) have significant impact on the country’s environment, forests, and natural resources.

Given that mitigating the social and economic distress among the vulnerable groups is at the core of the operation, WB has determined that the proposed interventions are likely to have largely positive social impacts.

The program focuses on directly transferring social protection benefits to women and provides extra weightage to the tribal households in targeting of benefits (due to the constitutional protection accorded to these groups).

The program will provide fast and flexible cash support to address ecological and climate-based vulnerabilities.

The program will also incentivize allocation of resources available to cities based on achievements on air.

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Rail Logistics Project.

Commitment Amount: US$ 250.00 million.

The project development objective is to enhance green multimodal logistics service along the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor and to develop institutional capacity of Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited and Ministry of Railways to de liver commercially sustainable Rail infrastructure and freight transport services.

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High Speed Rail Project

Project Value: 6.7 billion euros ($8124 million)

The HSL-Zuid Project will provide the Dutch with a 300-kph railway from Amsterdam southwards to the Belgian border, a distance of some 100km.

Journey times between Amsterdam and Paris or Brussels will be reduced by over an hour, and in some places internal domestic travel times will be halved – i.e. Amsterdam to Breda, or Rotterdam.

The total cost is around 6.7 billion euros, but the building of the substructure and railway infrastructure it carries, are being met by a public private partnership arrangement requiring no initial government investment.

The contracts cover both construction and 30 years maintenance. Following completion, the Netherlands government will pay around 106 million euros (excluding VAT) each year as an availability fee but they will offset this with the 148 million euros they expect to receive each year from the train operator as user fees.

This project is unique as the substructure for the railway, which includes all bridges, earthworks and tunnels, is provided by the Dutch State; everything on top of this is contained within a PPP. Scott Wilson and the project team are very proud to be working on Europe’s largest rail PPP project, and the project won the European PPP Project of the Year award in 2001.

Scott Wilsons involvement on the project can be traced back to the year 2000.

Our services are two fold: technical due diligence advice to the lending banks during the period up to financial close, and monitoring and certification work during the whole 30 year concession period for this finance, design, build, operation and maintenance contract.

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