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Exporting nations to waive duties on 200 IT products: WTO
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SME Times News Bureau | 27 Jul, 2015
Nations exporting IT products have agreed to waive tariffs on about 200 of them, the World Trade Organisation said on Saturday.
"In
all, 54 World Trade Organisation (WTO) members agreed to eliminate
tariffs on 201 IT products, whose combined value is $1.3 trillion and
accounts for seven percent of the global trade," the WTO said in a
statement here.
"Today's agreement is a landmark," said WTO director-general Roberto Azevedo.
"Annual
trade in these 201 products is valued at over $1.3 trillion per year,
and accounts for approximately 7 percent of total global trade today.
This is larger than global trade in automotive products - or trade in
textiles, clothing, iron and steel combined," he added.
Products
include new generation semi-conductors (chips), GPS navigation, medical
equipment, as well as machine tools for manufacturing printed circuits,
telecommunications satellites and touch screens.
"Eliminating
tariffs will have a huge impact on prices in other sectors where IT
products are used as inputs, create jobs and help boost GDP growth the
world over," Azevedo said after members agreed to implement the accord
on Friday.
Under the terms of the agreement, the majority of
tariffs will be eliminated on these products within three years, with
reductions beginning in 2016.
By the end of October 2015, each of
the participating members will submit to the others a draft schedule
which spells out how the terms of the agreement would be met.
Participants will spend the coming months preparing and verifying these
schedules.
"Exporting members will submit a draft schedule on
the terms to other members in October and ahead of the next ministerial
conference at Nairobi in Kenya in December," Azevedo added.
Claiming
it to be the first of its kind at the trade body in 18 years, Azevedo
said the deal was struck just two years after members agreed to the
historic package to lower trade barriers at Bali in Indonesia in
December 2013.
"We have shown multilateral trading system can
deliver real economic results, as evident from the two deals in two
years," Azevedo asserted on the occasion.
Asserting that all the
161 members of the trade body would benefit from the deal, as they
would enjoy duty-free market access in markets, Azevedo said its terms
would be circulated at the WTO general council meeting on July 28.
The
deal also envisages removing non-tariff barriers in the IT sector and
to keep a list of products covered under review to determine expansion
in future.
The latest deal is an expansion of the 1996 IT agreement by 81 members.
When
members recognised that technological innovation had advanced so much
that many of the new IT products were not covered under the 1996 pact,
they began negotiations in 2012 for expanding the list.
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