The Committee of Participants on the Expansion of Trade in
Information Technology Products approved the participation Morocco, which,
which became the 61st member of the WTO's Information Technology Agreement (ITA).
Morocco's Ambassador Omar Hilale presented his country's membership request
to the Committee on 5 November 2003. He said that Morocco's imports of IT
products have been rising in recent years due to tariff cuts, adding that
Rabat intends to eliminate most of these tariffs by 1 April 2004 under the
ITA. Ambasador Hilale said that joining the ITA would make prices of IT
inputs in Morocco more competitive and send the right signal to foreign
investors. From the 29 participants that
negotiated the ITA during WTO’s First Ministerial Conference in Singapore in
December 1996, membership has now risen to 61 that account for about 97% of
world trade in IT products. Participation in
the ITA means that the country must eliminate tariffs and all other duties
and charges on covered IT imports from all WTO members. |
Morocco,
on 14 November 2003, joined a WTO agreement on removing all tariff
barriers to information technology products such as personal computers and
telecoms equipment.