Taiwan and 23 other WTO members have reached an agreement to expand the Information Technology Agreement (ITA). The agreement reduces tariffs on certain technological products.
Talks on expanding the ITA were held in 2012, but failed to produce results after China rejected the proposed timetable. However, Economics Minister John Deng and ministers from other WTO member economies have broken new ground at the 10th WTO ministerial conference. The conference, which is being held in Nairobi, Kenya, wraps up Friday.
The ITA expansion will take effect next July at the earliest. It will gradually remove all tariff barriers on 201 technological products, including semiconductors, medical equipment, gaming consoles, and printers. Trade in the products covered under the agreement is worth US$1.3 trillion annually.
The economics ministry says that the expansion will be beneficial to Taiwan’s exports and to Taiwan’s IT industry overall. According to the economics ministry, ITA members will begin lowering tariffs next year.
Taiwan plans to drop all tariffs on around 70% of the listed items next year. The economics ministry hopes that tariffs on 90% of the remaining items will be abolished in three years. The ministry also says that Taiwan has a competitive advantage when it comes to 136 of the items on the list. These include digital cameras and solid state disks.