Main headlines from this issue

Saudi Arabia’s new guidelines recalled – expect changes

Saudi Arabia’s Economic Offset Committee has recalled the country’s newly approved offset guidelines. The committee is planning to make changes, but officials decline to reveal what they might be.

Chief judge on national security exception for offsets: “No-one knows what it means, and no-one wants to know what it means.”

Judge James Bacchus, chairman of Greenberg Traurig’s global practice group, a former U.S. Congressman and a one-time chief judge at the WTO, said that offset and countertrade may cease to exist within ten years. The world is turning toward rules that will discipline these kinds of performance requirements, he predicted.

Speakers consider growth of civil offsets in emerging markets

Mike Fisher, GE Aviation’s regional manager for industrial cooperation and offset, said that of about 80 countries that practice some type of formal offset, about eighteen require civil offsets.  Requests for civil offset programmes are clearly growing.

South Korea: DAPA revises offset guidelines

South Korea’s Defence Acquisition Programme Administration (DAPA) has reviewed offset guidelines and introduced a number of changes.

Australia’s AIC “flat earth” policy

Australia’s government doesn’t like offsets and doesn’t practice them, Malcolm Taylor, CEO of the C&I Projects Group, told a conference. Or at least that’s what they like to say.