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The
agreement to update the WTO's 18-year-old Information Technology
Agreement (ITA) adds more than 200 products to the list of goods
covered by zero-tariff and duty-free trade.
The U.S. Trade Representative said more than $100 billion of
U.S. exports alone would be covered by the updated agreement and
industry estimates showed the removal of tariffs could support
up to 60,000 additional jobs.
“ITA’s expansion is great news for the American workers and
businesses that design, manufacture, and export state-of-the-art
technology and information products, ranging from MRI machines
to semiconductors to video game consoles,” U.S. Trade
Representative Michael Froman said.
Technology manufacturers like General Electric Co <GE.N>, Intel
Corporation <INTC.O>, Texas Instruments Inc <TXN.O>, Microsoft
Corp <MSFT.O> and Nintendo Co <7974.T> are among companies
expected to benefit from the deal.
Additional duty-free products include computer software and
software media, video game consoles, printer ink cartridges, GPS
devices, medical devices such as MRI machines and next
generation semiconductors, the Technology CEO Council said.
"That definitely impacts Intel and that’s important but also as
important are the other technologies that it covers that were
not even dreamt of when the original ITA was negotiated," said
Intel communications director Lisa Malloy.
"Things like ... health devices and GPS (are) technologies that
semiconductors and Intel hope to power in the years to come."
(Reporting by Krista Hughes, additional reporting by Supantha
Mukherjee in Bangalore and Tom Miles in Geneva; Editing by
Bernard Orr)
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