19 WTO members including US, agree among themselves not to impose duties on e-commerce

GENEVA: The US and more than a dozen other countries including Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Australia on Thursday launched their own pact to not impose duties on e-commerce after no agreement was reached to end deadlock with Brazil, a document showed.

Brazil had opposed an extension of a global deal at World Trade Organization talks.

Failure at a high-level WTO meeting in Yaounde, Cameroon, in March to renew the long-standing moratorium on duties for cross-border streaming and downloads marked another setback for the WTO’s role in setting global trade rules.

The moratorium, agreed in 1998 and regularly renewed since, bars duties on cross-border electronic transmissions such as streaming music or films and downloading software.

WTO members with large digital economies - including the US, the European Union, Canada and Japan - argue it provides predictability for global digital trade and want it made permanent.

On Thursday, 19 countries, including the US, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Australia, Norway and Argentina, announced the pact, agreed among themselves, not to impose duties on electronic transmissions for an unspecified period.

The final text confirmed that it would come into effect on May 8, while expressing disappointment at the lapse of the multilateral moratorium.

“Nonetheless, this group of Members remains committed to do what we can to provide to businesses and consumers a measure of predictability and certainty in the absence of the multilateral E-Commerce Moratorium,” the document, dated 7 May, said.

The document invited other members to join the agreement.