[kictanet] Chinese team ducks talks with US envoy

[Mwendwa Kivuva]

Thank you Dr. Waudo for bringing this very important topic to the forefront.

I'm not sure if China has signed, but from the information on the WTO
website, this deal has been sealed.

The issue is for ICT products exporting countries to remove tariff barriers
i.e  "duty-free market access to the markets of the members eliminating
tariffs on these products". I'm not sure Kenya falls under that category.
We are mass consumers. However, we should consider doing the same at home.
During Kibaki regime, part of the success of the ICT industry was zero
rating most ICT tools. This is a ripe area for positive advocacy.

Here is the report:

https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news15_e/ita_16dec15_e.htm

16 December 2015

*INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AGREEMENT*

WTO members conclude landmark $1.3 trillion IT trade deal

WTO members representing major exporters of information technology products
agreed today (16 December) 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 per cent 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.

“I am delighted to mark this breakthrough here today at the Ministerial
Conference”, said WTO Director General Roberto Azevêdo. “This is a very
significant achievement. 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. It will support lower prices — including in many other sectors that
use IT products as inputs — it will create jobs and it will help to boost
GDP growth around the world”.

This breakthrough follows months of intensive negotiations among the ITA
participants. Their review of “draft schedules” involved a process whereby
each of them indicated over what timeframe and how they intended to
implement the elimination of duties on these products.

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.

The WTO Director General said: “This agreement is the first major
tariff-cutting deal at the WTO since 1996 — and it comes fast on the heels
of the historic Bali Package. We now have two deals in two years which
deliver real, economically significant results. I hope that this success
will serve to inspire progress elsewhere in our work.”

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.

The agreement also contains a commitment to work to tackle non-tariff
barriers in the IT sector, and to keep the list of products covered under
review to determine whether further expansion may be needed to reflect
future technological developments.

The agreement is an expansion of the 1996 Information Technology Agreement
which involves 82 members. In 2012, members recognized that technological
innovation had advanced to such an extent that many new categories of IT
products were not covered by the existing agree§ment. Negotiations began in
2012 to expand the coverage of the accord.

On Dec 17, 2015 12:43 PM, "waudo siganga via kictanet" <
kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:

> Interesting headline in today's Daily Nation highlighting intrigues
> surrounding talks on the Information Technology Agreement at the Nairobi
> WTO meeting. Ironically no-one seems to be bothered that the host, Kenya,
> has not signed that agreement that would have led to much more affordable
> ICT products for consumers. Maybe we are too tiny a speck in the ICT
> universe.
>
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