“WHEN you’ve already settled the price of the car, there’s no point quibbling over whether the gas tank is full.” Thus did Roberto Azevedo, director-general of the World Trade Organisation, urge WTO ambassadors this week to conclude the second Information Technology Agreement (ITA-II). They duly agreed to eliminate import tariffs on 201 new electronics products, such as high-end semiconductors, medical equipment and game consoles.
The 54 countries involved cover 90% of the trade in such goods, which in turn amounts to 10% of all world trade. The deal extends the product list of the original ITA, in 1996, which included floppy disks and tape recorders, to include modern technologies such as the flash drives for smartphones. A final agreement was expected on July 24th.
ITA-II is the first big WTO trade deal since the original ITA and has been haggled over for three years. The slowness of progress was largely due to China, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea fighting over the inclusion of goods produced by infant industries they had been protecting from international competition. India stayed away from the talks altogether, citing the...
from The Economist: Finance and economics http://ift.tt/1TTKYXG
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