Sri Lanka’s first glimpse of landmark global IT pact today

From left: Minister of Industry and Commerce Rishad Bathiudeen, Senior Statistician, Market Access Intelligence Section of WTO Eric Shing and Counsellor of Market Access Division of WTO Xiaobing Tang

As the landmark global Information Technology Agreement (ITA) completes its 20th anniversary, Sri Lanka is to catch its first glimpse of the ITA in Colombo today.

Two high level representatives from the World Trade Organisation (WTO) have arrived in Colombo to give a firsthand briefing to the rising Lankan IT sector and its firms, trade and policy officials and other stakeholders on the landmark WTO ITA’s way forward for the country. 

Senior Statistician, Market Access Intelligence Section of WTO Eric Shing and Counsellor of Market Access Division of WTO Xiaobing Tang will begin their Colombo briefings today joined by Minister of Industry and Commerce Rishad Bathiudeen, who is scheduled to launch the event at the Taj Samudra Hotel.

ITA, which was agreed upon in 1996 and entered into force on 1 July 1997, aims to bring all taxes and tariffs on information technology products (by signatory members) to zero. The ITA membership, which was at 29 when the members first met in Singapore in 1997, has after 20 years increased to 82. In another landmark deal under ITA, in 2015 December 53 WTO member countries, who claim 90% of world trade in IT products, agreed to eliminate tariffs on 201 IT products.

ITA’s impact is vast in that it is not only about IT products but covers intellectual property, trade rules, telecommunications and telecom satellites, medical equipment, GPS navigation systems and even touch screens.

Sri Lanka is not a member of ITA yet and is holding off on joining as domestic stakeholders need to be updated first on the various aspects and huge benefits of the agreement. Today’s session in Colombo is expected to commence Sri Lanka’s much-awaited journey to join the landmark WTO ITA and reap the huge export and import benefits that it readily affords to the country’s surging IT sector and related subsectors.