Belgium - Bidding for public contracts under the EU-Canada trade agreement

The EU-Canada trade agreement gives EU firms a better chance to win public contracts in tenders issued by any level of government in Canada, whether federal, provincial, or municipal.

One European company that has benefitted from this opening is asUgo, founded in 2016 in Belgium by Julien Blaise and Gaëtan Mondet. asUgo provides Customer Relationship Management solutions, for organisations from the private, public, and nonprofit sectors to better connect with their customers.

Having worked with several Belgian municipalities to help them embrace the digital transformation and better serve citizens, asUgo was confident that the concept could also be of interest to clients outside of the EU. The company's first stop on this new international journey was Canada.

asUgo goes to Canada 

Thanks to the EU-Canada trade agreement, asUgo was able to benefit from the fact that Canadian public agencies and bodies may not discriminate against European companies. Canada has also made the tendering process more transparent by publishing all its public tenders on a single procurement website, CanadaBuys. 

asUgo representatives travelled to Canada and met important players who expressed interest in their solutions, and within six months, the firm had won its first three public contracts with Canadian municipalities. And this is just the beginning…

Heading for America 

After having decided to set up an office in Canada to exploit this market to its full potential, the company is now setting its sights on the US market.

Bidding for public procurement contracts is not without challenges, but the efforts have paid off well for asUgo.  

Today, asUgo counts 70 employees in Belgium, 15 in Portugal, and 2 in Canada, and the plan is to continue to expand internationally to help render public services more efficient across the globe. Existing and future EU trade agreements will be there to help in this quest. 

To find out if your company is entitled to participate in a given government procurement tender in Canada, use My Trade Assistant for Procurement.

Key facts

• Founded in 2016
• Headquarters: Brussels, Belgium
• Employees: 87