According to a report published on the World Trade Organization (WTO) website on 1 November 2016 the majority of the participants in the expanded Information Technology Agreement (ITA) have implemented their tariff commitments under the agreement and full implementation will be achieved in the near future.
The expanded ITA provides for the elimination of the import tariffs and other duties and charges on a further 201 categories of information and communication technology products with immediate effect in some cases or over three years in most others. That means that more than 95% of the tariffs on these categories of products will be completely removed by 2019, with the remaining tariffs on a small proportion of products being eliminated by 2021 or at the latest 2023.
The products on which tariffs are to be eliminated under the expanded ITA are in total valued at more than USD 1.3 trillion in annual trade globally, in addition to the products covered under the original ITA concluded twenty years ago. The agreement will be implemented by 53 WTO members but the benefits of tariff elimination will extend to all WTO members so they will all be given duty-free access to the markets of the members eliminating the tariffs in relation to these products.
