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The Information Technology Agreement (ITA) is a plurilateral agreement enforced by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and concluded at the WTO's Singapore Ministerial Conference in 1996. The agreement was set out in the Ministerial Declaration on Trade in Information Technology Products issued at the conference, and entered into force 1 July 1997. The declaration referred to "the key role of trade in information technology products in the development of information industries and in the dynamic expansion of the world economy".[2]
| Signed | 13 December 1996 |
|---|---|
| Effective | 1 July 1997 |
| Depositary | World Trade Organization |
Since 1997, a formal Committee under the WTO watches over the following of the Declaration and its Implementations.[3] The aim of the treaty is to lower all taxes and tariffs on information technology products by signatories to zero.[3]
The agreement was expanded at the Nairobi Ministerial Conference in 2015.[4] According to a 2017 study in the World Trade Review, the 2015 ITA expansion was "the most successful attempt at trade liberalization under the auspices of the WTO since its inception in 1995".[4] The study attributes the success of the negotiations to four factors: "a narrower scope without a single undertaking approach, a negotiating group that contained many but not all WTO members, a focus on tariffs rather than non-tariff barriers, and avoiding a nationalistic opposition".[4]
References
edit- ^ INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: SCHEDULES OF CONCESSIONS
- ^ World Trade Organization, Ministerial Declaration on Trade in Information Technology Products (Singapore, 13 December 1996), accessed 29 January 2024
- ^ a b "Information Technology Agreement — introduction". World Trade Organization. Retrieved 4 August 2010.
- ^ a b c Winslett, Gary (2017). "Critical Mass Agreements: The Proven Template for Trade Liberalization in the WTO". World Trade Review. 17 (3): 405–426. doi:10.1017/S1474745617000295. ISSN 1474-7456. S2CID 157207161.
External links
edit- Information Technology Agreement, WTO.
- ITA Schedules of Concessions, WTO.
- "Ministerial Declaration on Trade in Information Technology Products" (PDF) (text of the declaration). Singapore: World Trade Organization. 13 December 1996. Retrieved 4 August 2010.
- "Council for Trade in Goods – Implementation of the Ministerial Declaration on Trade in Information Technology Products" (WPF.ZIP or WPF.EXE). World Trade G/L/160 doc#97-1356; G/L/160/Add.1 doc#97-1935; G/L/160/Add.2 doc#97-3676 (text of the implementation with two "Note[s] by the Secretariat"). World Trade Organization. Retrieved 4 August 2010.[permanent dead link]