The Information Technology Agreement, which defines tariffs on many technology products at 0%, has been threatened by a stand-off between China and South Korea.
The ITA has not been updated since 1996, but there were discussions in Geneva about its expansion last year (Display Monitor Vol 20 No 27 – 46). These talks were deadlocked (mainly by China), when a list of products to be covered could not be agreed upon. A landmark agreement relating to the ITA was made by the USA and China earlier this year (Display Monitor Vol 21 No 45), which could cover as much as $1 trillion in trade.
South Korea is pressing for the inclusion of flat-panel displays in the expanded agreement, which were not part of the deal struck in October. China, meanwhile, “remains adamant that flat-panel displays cannot be added to the ITA list for zero tariffs because that would effectively increase the cost of the agreement to the country”, said a source speaking to the South China Morning Post.
The source went on to say, “What negotiators don’t quite understand is that the China-South Korea bilateral agreement from 2006 already stipulated a 10-year staging period for flat-panel displays to reach zero tariffs. That is only two years away now… I can only assume that China is worried about its domestic market being flooded with cheap flat-panel displays from other countries”.
Display Daily Comments
At the moment, the ITA applies to monitors and professional displays, but not to TVs, for example. As we have seen over the last ten years, defining when a flat panel display is a monitor or a TV can be a tortuous business! (BR)
