WTO members representing major exporters of information technology products agreed last month at the WTO’s Tenth Ministerial Conference in Nairobi on the timetable for implementing a landmark deal to eliminate tariffs on 201 IT products valued at over $1.3 trillion per year.
Negotiations were conducted by 53 WTO members, including both developed and developing countries, which account for approximately 90% of world trade in these products. However, all 162 WTO members will benefit from the agreement, as they will all enjoy duty-free market access to the markets of the members eliminating tariffs on these products. The list of 201 products was originally agreed by the Information Technology Agreement (ITA) participants in July 2015.
“This is a very significant achievement,” said WTO director general Roberto Azevêdo. “Annual trade in these 201 products is valued at $1.3 trillion per year, and accounts for approximately 10% of total global trade. Eliminating tariffs on trade of this magnitude will have a huge impact.”
For every product on the list, ITA participants have negotiated the level of reductions and over how many years it will fully eliminate the tariffs. As a result of these negotiations, approximately 65% of tariff lines will be fully eliminated by 1 July 2016. Most of the remaining tariff lines will be completely phased out in four stages over three years. This means that by 2019 almost all imports of the relevant products will be duty free.
Among the products covered in this agreement are new-generation semi-conductors, GPS navigation systems, medical products which include magnetic resonance imaging machines, machine tools for manufacturing printed circuits, telecommunications satellites and touch screens.
