A TOTAL of 28 countries, including Ireland, have already signed up to the Information Technology Agreement (ITA), hammered out at the World Trade Organisation meeting in Singapore.
Ministers said it was the most far-reaching agreement ever towards free trade in a single sector. The agreement will eliminate tariffs on a vast range of high-tech consumer goods by the end of the century. It provides for a reduction of current duties by a quarter on the first of January of each of the next four years.
The United States and the European Union will aim to reach the zero-tariff target even earlier. Acting US trade representative Ms Charlene Barshefsky said there was no doubt an agreement to eliminate tariffs in the fast-growing information technology market would be implemented early next year.
The US and the EU set as a condition for agreement the inclusion of enough countries to represent 90 per cent of the world's $500 billion information technology industry.
"Criterion number one - do we have approximately 90 per cent of trade covered? We are already there," she told a news conference yesterday. A total of 28 countries, representing 84 per cent of global trade, had signed the agreement and another six had said they would sign on in the coming weeks, bring the total to 94 per cent.
Exports of information technology products are growing by 15 per cent a year, making it the most important and vital sector in world trade
The US, where 1.8 million people are employed in the industry, had made the achievement of the ITA its top priority at the WTO meeting.
The agreement was reached after four days of round-the-clock talks. Experts said it would bring down prices on a wide range of products using high-tech equipment, from cars to photocopiers. An annex to the agreement listed hundreds of items including word processors, calculating machines, automatic teller machines, microphones, loudspeakers, magnetic tapes, digital video cameras, electrical capacitors, electrical resistors and plugs and sockets.
EU Trade Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan earlier called it "a huge advance for the world economy" which "will act as a catalyst for industrial growth".
The 28 countries that have signed up include the 15 EU members, the US, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Iceland, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Norway, Singapore, Switzerland, Taiwan and Turkey.
