EU calls for rewrite of IT trade agreement

As tensions mount over the global trade in IT products, the European Commission has called for a broad discussion among all producer countries about what goods should and should not be slapped with customs duties, as well as talks on other barriers to trade, commonly called non-tariff barriers.

IT products now account for more than US$1.5 trillion in exports worldwide, around a fifth of total world exports of manufactured products, according to the Commission.

This is a sharp rise from $600 billion in 1996, when the world's biggest IT producing countries signed the Information Technology Agreement (ITA), a pact aimed at reducing duties on devices used by corporations.