The Committee
of Participants on the Expansion of Trade in Information Technology
Products approved the participation of the two countries, which became
the 58th and the 59th members of the WTO's Information Technology
Agreement (ITA).
China's
Ambassador Sun Zhenyu and Egypt's Ambassador Naéla Gabr presented the
membership requests of their respective governments to the Committee.
The other ITA
participants are: Albania; Australia; Bulgaria; Canada; Costa Rica;
Croatia; Cyprus; Czech Republic; El Salvador; Estonia; European
Communities (the EC schedule comprises the commitments of the 15
member states); Hong Kong, China; Iceland; India; Indonesia; Israel;
Japan; Jordan; Korea; Kyrgyz Republic; Latvia; Macao, China; Malaysia;
Mauritius; Moldova; New Zealand; Norway; Oman; Panama; Philippines;
Poland; Singapore; Slovak Republic; Slovenia; Switzerland (on behalf of
the customs union Switzerland and Liechtenstein); Chinese Taipei; Thailand; Turkey; and
the United States.
This WTO
agreement is helping push the information technology revolution forward.
Beginning in 2000, most of the world trade in information technology
products (worth $828 billion in 2001 for office and telecom equipment, a
large part of which are IT products) became completely free of tariffs
under ITA. 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.
From the 29
participants that negotiated the ITA during WTO’s First Ministerial
Conference in Singapore in December 1996, membership has now risen to 59
that account for 95% of world trade in IT products. |
