OCEA CERI Call 0001 final.docx

FA7146-20-S-0001

OCEA

Commercial and Economic Research and Innovation (CERI) Call: C-001

I. INTRODUCTION

This Call describes an activity entitled Outbound Economic and Business Activity of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) under Commercial Solutions Opening FA7146-0-S-0001 for Air Force Office of Commercial and Economic Analysis (OCEA), which can be found at: https://beta.sam.gov/opp/5c205197e7a365497681f72bd0c7bd0a/view?index=&is_active=true&keywords=FA7146-20-S-0001&page=1&sort=-relevance.

The submission of proposals, their evaluation and the placement of awards will be carried out as described in that Commercial Solutions Opening.

The purpose of this announcement is to inform interested parties of (1) topic details, (2) the structure of the Commercial and Economic Research and Innovation (CERI) program, and (3) the timetable for the submission of white papers and proposals.

II. DESCRIPTION Background PRC outbound economic and business activity has the potential to create risks for the interests of the United States, our allies, and partners. This activity takes many forms, including but not limited to capital in exchange for equity in corporate assets; loans to subsidize PRC-led infrastructure projects; grants to accelerate Beijing’s geopolitical agenda; and a number of more complex “exchange-of-value” transactions. To meet the demands of the National Security and National Defense Strategies, the executive branch must increase its awareness of these transactions so as to better assess potential risks to U.S. national interests. The PRC has a known track record of using its economic toolkit to advance its national goals, often at the expense of the recipient country. Many PRC transactions are linked to larger geo-economic strategies, like the One Belt One Road Initiative or Made in China 2025.

Objective

OCEA is soliciting vendors to provide innovative methods for a government enterprise solution that enhances awareness of PRC outbound economic and business activities.

Numerous organizations across the USG desire a clearer understanding of PRC overseas economic activity. Commercial industry understands this demand signal and numerous contractors are engaging different parts of the USG offering to sell proprietary data, data integration services or analytic interfaces to solve the government’s problem. A government frustration however is that end-user license agreement constraints can limit the ability of government agencies to talk to each other. The government’s problem is not just preferred interface or hosting solutions or preferred data provider, but the ability of the government to share information.

Interested vendors should know:

1. OCEA is acting on behalf of an interagency consortium. White papers should explain how government purpose rights to the deliverables of the innovative approach could enable an enterprise solution across multiple government agencies.

· At a minimum, the white paper should explain how all deliverables will be sharable with members of the interagency consortium without limitation. At present, the consortium includes the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Export-Import Bank of the United States.

· The consortium also wants to be sure it understands the vendor’s Terms and Conditions for sharing products derived from the deliverables (such as reports and interactive dashboards) as well as extracts of the deliverables with other U.S. government agencies, White Papers and deliverables must not be marked proprietary. (See section III below)

· The consortium recognizes the potential diversity of solutions to this Call and desires intellectual property flexibility with respect to efforts considered for potential funding. For this reason, data rights and licenses of technologies meeting government needs will be articulated upon request for proposal.

2. Recognizing any single approach may not cover all of the consortium’s diverse needs, White papers should elaborate on the strengths and limitations of the proposed approach by addressing:

· Types of PRC outbound economic and business transactions included.

· The consortium is interested in novel approaches to understand such activities as overseas Chinese official and major loans, state-owned enterprise loans, grants, credit guarantees and insurance, direct investments and investment insurance, portfolio investments, construction contracts, humanitarian assistance, broad economic and trade agreements, special economic zones, and technology transfers, among other strategic economic and business activities, across all sectors.

· All parties involved in the PRC outbound economic and business transactions.

· Including all unique identifiers for the parties (DUNS # is preferred).

· Geographical and temporal coverage of the proposed approach.

· The consortium is interested in global coverage and a sense of how far back in time the proposed approach has records.

· Latency in how often the deliverables will be updated (hourly, daily, weekly, etc).

· The consortium is interested in approaches that offer as close to real-time updates as possible

· Overview of applicable methodologies.

· Method of delivery

· For example, AWS open architecture APIs (preferred), other REST APIs, or Extract, Transform, Load (ETL)

· Other unique elements of the innovative approach the government should be aware of, including, but not limited to:

· Early stage offers, pending and confirmed transaction information, prior to consummation.

· Terms and conditions of loans PRC outbound loans such as but not limited to interest rates, maturity period, grace period, exposure fees and risk fees.

· Projected changes in throughput of infrastructure projects (for example, how many more short tons or kilowatt hours the project is supposed to create)

3. The consortium is also interested in vendors’ original analysis or commentary on the importance of transactions, so white papers should elaborate on how the innovative approach would support original analyses (at the transaction, country, or regional levels) through either the regular transmission of analysis or on an ad hoc basis. Examples of areas of interest are:

· Quality of transaction descriptions.

· How would the proposed approach understand the strategic intent of Chinese economic and business activity in addition to purely transactional information?

· Risk flagging

· How would the proposed approach identify issues associated with these PRC economic and business transactions and PRC companies or entities (corruption, labor violations, environmental degradation, civil society backlash, etc).

4. White papers should elaborate on the innovative approach as it exists today, but also potential future capability that could be brought to bear over time.

III. SUBMISSION PROCESS

Offerors shall submit white papers and only those that satisfy the criteria set forth in the OCEA Commercial Solutions Opening FA7146-20-S-0001 and consistent with the requirements of this call will be further considered by the government as applicable.. The submission process under FA7146-20-S-0001 is:

· White Papers: The white paper due date is no later than 11:59 PM Washington, DC local time on 09 November 2020. White papers are limited to less than 10 pages in length. Specific instructions for submission can be found in FA 7146-20-S-0001. White papers received after that date may still be considered as time and availability of funding permit.

The white paper should describe innovative methods for a government enterprise solution that enhances awareness of PRC outbound investments, globally, and should include the following sections in addition to the items listed in the Objective:

· Schedule: Provide a preliminary proposed development schedule that includes relevant quantitative milestones throughout the project.

· Development Price ROM: Provide a Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) on the cost of the approach that helps the consortium understand how best to partner. Vendors are encouraged to provide ROM prices for 1) providing data and deliverables to the consortium of the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Export-Import Bank of the United States, and 2) providing data and deliverables to the consortium that can be further made available (without limitation internally) to all U.S. government agencies.

· White Paper Evaluation/Notification: The Government anticipates providing responses regarding white papers via email on or about 15 November 2020. An Invitation to Propose (ITP) will be issued to vendor(s) at the government’s discretion.

IV. FULL PROPOSAL SUBMISSION (IF REQUESTED) AND AWARD INFORMATION

If a Full proposal is requested by the government, the proposal should be submitted under the OCEA Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO) FA7146-20-S-0001, by 1 December 2020. Full Proposals received after that date may be considered if time and availability of funding permit. Full proposals shall be submitted in accordance with the requirements of the current CSO.

Under this call, contracts or other transactions may be awarded. If invited to submit a proposal, a respondent shall follow the proposal submissions instructions provided by the government.

V. SIGNIFICANT DATES AND TIMES

Note: The above timeline is projected and is subject to change.

VI. POINTS OF CONTACT

The points of contact for this specific call are listed below Technical Point of Contact:

Patrick (Tony) Porter Strategic Initiatives Director patrick.porter.5us.af.mil 703-545-7658

Business Point of Contact:

Kevin Adams Contracting Officer, SAF/CDM kevin.adams.20@us.af.mil 301-203-4766

VII. SUBMISSION OF QUESTIONS

Any questions regarding this announcement must be provided to the Technical Point of Contact and/or the Business Point of Contact listed above. All questions shall be submitted in writing by electronic mail.

Responses to the same or similar questions received from various interested parties, or information required to be shared with all sources so as to not create an unfair competitive advantage, may be posted by the government as a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) list, or as an Amendment to this Call, as may be required: :

System for Awards Management: https://beta.sam.gov/opp/5c205197e7a365497681f72bd0c7bd0a/view?index=&is_active=true&keywords=FA7146-20-S-0001&page=1&sort=-relevance

OCEA Website:

https://www.afocea.com

Questions regarding White Papers or Full Proposals should be submitted within a week of the issuance of the call and the ITP respectively (deadlines will be included in the posting). Questions after this date may not be answered.

DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A. Approved for public release: distribution unlimited.