ADS is pleased to bring you this webinar panel discussion that will focus on the UK and international perspective around "Offset"-type arrangements, including:
- offset/industrial participation/industrial cooperation-type commercial mechanisms
- valuation of related credits
- perceived potential ‘integrity’ risks associated with discharging offset/industrial participation/industrial cooperation-type obligations in overseas markets.
The event is free-to-attend, and is being put together with contributions from a number of experts on this subject.
It is not intended for the subject matter expert practitioners, rather it is intended to provide information and enhanced awareness for those companies and individuals who infrequently come across “Offset”-type commercial mechanisms and realise that they need to know a bit more about the subject. Especially SMEs with less exposure and who can potentially use these mechanisms for their own commercial advantage, both in pursuit of overseas business, as well as potentially making practical use of them in the global marketplace.
Agenda
- 10:00 - Housekeeping - ADS Event Manager
- 10:02 - Welcome and opening comments - Brinley Salzmann (Director – Overseas & Exports, ADS Group)
- 10:10 - Introduction to Offset/Industrial Participation/Industrial Cooperation Credits - Representative of PwC, Rajpriya Bhattacharya (CTO)
- 10:40 - Panel discussion - Considering the UK and international perspective, how do you prepare, budget, value and make most of offset / industrial participation/ industrial cooperation arrangements and how could companies work together to make offset/industrial participation/industrial cooperation and economic tool that enables us to be more competitive - Moderated by: Brinley Salzmann (Director – Overseas & Exports, ADS Group) - Panellists: Stephen Lewis (Constructive Edge) - TBC - Steve Pegg (Lockheed Martin), John MacNamara (Carshalton Commodities Ltd), Rajpriya Bhattachary (CTO), Representative of PwC
- 11:30 - Closing comments - Brinley Salzmann (Director - Overseas & Exports, ADS Group)
Register to attend
To secure your place to attend this free-to-participate event, please click the 'Register' button at the top of the page and follow the steps to complete your booking.
Background
“Offset”-type commercial mechanisms for government purchases have become an increasingly important aspect of modern global trade. Whilst it is the perception of some that “Offset”-type mechanisms can distort the functioning of markets and therefore should be dispensed and are unnecessary, this can be grossly over-simplistic; it can be cogently argued that “Offset”-type mechanisms, far from being a restrictive influence on Free Trade, can serve as a positive influence to facilitate and foster business for exporters, which otherwise just would not exist. This is an argument which is rarely put in public, but is recognised and accepted by those companies who actually have the “Offset” obligations.
In countries which have their own well-established indigenous defence industrial capabilities, Offset can help to redress the competitive edge arising from political lobbying influence that the local suppliers have over foreign competitors. Often it can be perceived that such policies make it more politically defensible for a government to announce it is going to place major contracts overseas which its indigenous Industry is also capable of fulfilling. Without our such policies, offshore companies would find it very much harder to win business from internationally, and thus, far from being restrictive in nature, such policies can positively help to safeguard the extremely open nature of a nation’s procurement system, to the advantage of potential offshore suppliers.
In countries without indigenous defence industries, “Offset”-type policies can be seen as a means to help in the protection of their local economies, to counter the potential outflow of capital from the country and even as a means to assist in the economic development of the nation as a whole. Only the existence of an “Offset”-type policy makes it politically defensible for large defence programmes to proceed, in some nations. Certainly, without the influx of Offset-related investment resulting from the placing of its large defence orders, some governments would find it much more difficult to justify the major procurement programmes that their own Armed Forces have desperately needed. In addition, if “Offset”-type policies can help in the development of a national economy, this is something which can have long-term benefits. This means not just that the orders in question will be allowed to take place, but also that future orders will similarly be possible, and the local economy better able to sustain them.
Some experts have observed what is called a “reverse piggy-back” phenomenon, by which SMEs can use “Offset”-type policies as a mechanism to generate commercially beneficial activity for themselves overseas in ways that also generate benefit for the major Prime Contractors whilst at the same time expanding their own export activities.
However, there are some observers (including Transparency International) who have headlined other cases when “Offset”-type policies in some nations have been able to be used by officials and politicians from those countries to hide bribery and corruption and other types of unethical activities, little recognising that such actions are not really able to be done in other parts of the world, where there are policies with greater transparency and oversight.
