The U.S and the World Trade Organization (WTO)www.wto.org have announced an expansion of the Information Technology Agreement (ITA) that will generate economic growth by phasing out hundreds of tariffs on information technology exports all over the world.
The original ITA ended in 1996 but despite the tremendous growth in global trade in technology products which has nearly tripled to over $4 trillion annually, the scope of the ITA had never been updated. So last July, the parties reached agreement on the ITA expansion list of 201 products and has now eliminated tariffs on those goods.
The U.S as a leader in IT under the ITA expansion, over $180 billion in annual American technology exports will no longer face burdensome tariffs in key markets around the globe, according to the WTO. In addition, ITA expansion will lower costs for downstream manufacturing and services industries that rely on ICT parts and components as inputs, increasing their competitiveness.
Expanding the ITA to cover a wide array of additional products promises to be a major boost to U.S technology exports and the jobs that support them,” said U.S Trade Representative Michael Froman http://ustr.gov.
He adds, “This is great news for American workers and businesses that design, manufacture, and export state-of-the-art technology and information products ranging from high tech healthcare devices to advanced semiconductors to software media.”