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Key
points from presentations:
 
Background on ICC as world business organization, with membership in over 130
countries, multi-sectoral business representatives from multi-nationals to small
& medium size enterprises
ICC Commission on E-Business, IT and Telecoms focuses on key policy and
regulatory issues that affect growth in these issue areas as critical components
of development and produces practical information and tools for easy use by
developing countries to assist in establishment of necessary infrastructures,
legal and regulatory frameworks to promote accessibility and connectivity
E-commerce is a new and dynamic vehicle to deliver goods and services on a major
scale, thus basic value-added telecommunications services are critical
components of the e-commerce and information technology infrastructure
ICC sets forth the following negotiating objectives for the next round of WTO
negotiations:
-
To
promote the development of the infrastructure that is necessary to conduct
e-commerce;
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To
promote the development of trade in goods and services via e-commerce and
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To
prevent the establishment of new barriers to e-commerce
See
attached ICC policy statement Trade related aspects of electronic commerce and
telecommunications. All key components of this statement were presented and
discussed.
Issues
raised during the presentations:
Developing countries need increased connectivity and the elimination of
obstacles to trade and telecommunications development
The work of liberalizing telecommunications is not over yet, and is key for
economic growth
Analysis of deregulation in a developing country----Pakistan shows that
deregulation must be accompanied by strong institutional and legal constructions
as well
Pakistan’s telecommunications structure will be open to competition with some
parameters at the end of 2003
The deregulation has been accompanied by lower taxes & duties, judicial
reform and judicial attention to ensuring that national and foreign companies
have protections in the areas of copyright, contract law, trademark and patents,
partnerships
The key to attracting foreign and national investment is to ensure that they
feel secure
What
is the promise of digital development?
IT is a tool for development, and developing countries that are not making
services a priority sparks 2 questions:
-
Why
should services and in particular IT-related services matter for developing
countries, and
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Why,
on the contrary, is this area of negotiations attracting little attention?
 In
general, the rule that has applied to traditional trade applies to services;
Countries that have embraced openness have tended to reap substantial benefits.
By doing so in the multilateral trade context, they have ensured that their
trade relations can take place in a stable and predicatable, rules-based
environment with instruments for the settlement of disputes.
Service sector is already the fastest growing component of both trade and
foreign direct investment
IT services play a critical role in developing and upgrading a country’s
infrastructure
Thus, the promise is that IT and telecoms enable faster, cheaper more ubiquitous
access to information, education, public services and markets around the world
Empowers low-cost creation and distribution of “content”
Improves the way people live, learn, work and communicate
Developing countries should be interested in opening up trade in services for at
least 4 reasons:
-
Because
they are well-positioned to become net exporters
-
Opening
their markets would attract significant investment
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The
availability of world-class IT services would mean dramatic gains in
efficiency and
-
It
would make their IT skills marketable on a global scale.
When multi-nationals establish business in developing countries, they can bring
technology transfer, create jobs and encourage local development
What prevents some multinationals from entering certain developing countries’
markets is often the fact they have not opened their market, the necessary
supportive legal and IT/Telecoms infrastructures are not in place, and the
country may not be fulfilling commitments under multi-lateral trade agreements
An example of a non-IT or telecoms company that requires the establishment of
certain IT and telecoms structures before coming into a country underscored the
opportunity that this kind of investment brings in terms of education,
technology infrastructure building
The questions and discussion section included the following points:
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The
need for supportive electronic trade documents such as letters of credit,
transport documents, and the work ICC Commissions are doing in this area in
conjunction with the customs organizations
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Uniform
standards are needed to support B2B online trade, and ICC work with
standards setting organizations to encourage and contribute to the
establishment of these standards
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Specific
barriers to developing telecoms infrastructures in sub-saharan Africa were
discussed, with the reason being that the telecoms monopolies in many
developing countries make it hard for multi-nationals to establish and
invest in those countries
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The
need for security and authentication from end to end of B2B online
transactions was highlighted
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ICC,
as the voice of global business, urges the moratorium on customs duties on
e-commerce to become permanent
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Top 
May
6, 2002
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