Proposal for a Council Decision on the conclusion, on behalf of the European Union, of an agreement in the form of a Declaration on the expansion of Trade in Information Technology Products (ITA)

The "Ministerial Declaration on Trade in Information Technology Products", known as the Information Technology Agreement (ITA), was concluded by 29 WTO Member States at the Singapore Ministerial Conference in 1996. The ITA entered into force in the European Union in 1997. Today, the ITA counts 82 participants, or half of WTO Members, and covers 97% of trade in this sector.

The ITA requires that each participant eliminates and binds customs duties at zero on a Most Favoured Nation basis for all information technology (IT) products covered. The ITA covers about 200 tariff lines, including computers, telephones, but also inputs, components and machinery for the production of IT goods. The duty free treatment given by the ITA participants has played an important role in the enormous development and expansion of trade that the IT sector has experienced over the close to 20 years of application of the ITA. Trade in the sector has quadrupled. However, during this time span technological progress has changed the IT sector beyond recognition, while the coverage of the ITA remained the same.

In May 2012, several countries proposed to expand the product coverage of the ITA. On 24 July 2015, the text of the "Declaration on the Expansion of Trade on Information Technology Products" was agreed, with a view to bind and eliminate customs duties on an additional list of 201 IT products. Subsequently, in accordance with paragraph 5 therein, the participants agreed on the staging commitments for each product listed in document G/MA/W/117. There are currently 25 participating members (or 53 counting EU MS) in the expansion of the ITA, which cover 90% of trade in the items on the list. Annual trade in these 201 products is valued at over $1.3 trillion per year, and accounts for approximately 10% of total global trade today.

The agreement in the form of a Declaration on the Expansion of the ITA (and the schedules containing the staging commitments of the participants) was adopted by the Ministers of the participant countries on 16 December 2015, during the 10th WTO Ministerial Conference in Nairobi. The Declaration will enter into force in the European Union once it is accepted. The objective of this proposal is the approval by the European Union of the agreement in the form of a Declaration on the Expansion of the ITA.

EUR-Lex: COM(2016)122: Follow the progress of this proposal through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2016:122:FIN

ESO: Background information: EU and WTO partners finalise high tech trade deal http://www.europeansources.info/record/press-release-eu-and-wto-partners-finalise-high-tech-trade-deal/

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