prime contract
noun
A contract whose requirements are partly fulfilled by the awarding of subcontracts.Currently the company has the $6 million prime contract on the largest project in central Pennsylvania, a seven-story judicial center in York County....
- As well as designing and building the ships, the £130 million prime contract covers the support of the ships through their expected 25-year service life with the Royal Navy.
- This is done in order to counteract the main trend in defense contract awards, which concentrates prime contracts among a very small number of firms - for example, each year approximately two-thirds of such contracts go to 100 firms.
Derivatives
prime contractor
- The former, as prime contractor, builds the aft and central superstructure, the latter the ship's bow and distinctive pyramidal main mast.
- Typically, these projects consist of a prime contractor that doles out parts of the jet's development to dozens of subcontractors and hundreds of smaller suppliers.
- Production is primarily dependent on the privately owned network of prime contractors and subcontractors.