Selected trade developments and issues

In December 1996, at the first WTO Ministerial Conference held in Singapore, 23 economies signed the Information Technology Agreement (ITA). The objective of the ITA was to “encourage the continued technological development of the information technology industry on a world-wide basis” and to “achieve maximum freedom of world trade in IT products” by eliminating all duties on trade in these products. Lower barriers to trade should help to spread “the positive contribution of IT to global economic growth and welfare”.1 The ITA went into force in 1997, when the trade value of the participants exceeded 90 per cent of world trade in the covered products – the benchmark stipulated in the Agreement. Ten years on, the information and communication industry is seen as a major engine of the globalisation process, transforming both the developed and developing economies. The rapid development of the internet (1 billion users in 2005) and the global spread of cellular mobile telephony (2.1 billion subscribers in 2005) are two prominent examples of the increased role of IT in today’s global economy. The spread of IT technologies has created many new business opportunities, transformed many services sectors and challenged many old patterns of production and distribution.