India, South Africa Adopt Tough Stand On E-Commerce Moratorium

The US offers to organise a workshop to assess the implications of electronic transmissions in return for extending the moratorium

- D Ravi Kanth

India and South Africa have adopted a tough stand against the current moratorium on levying customs duties on electronic transmissions at the World Trade Organization, forcing the US to come to the negotiating table for the first time, said trade envoys.

The existing moratorium will expire at the end of next month, unless it is extended for another six months. The moratorium has been extended since 1998 on a biennial basis at every WTO trade ministerial conference.

At a meeting of the WTO’s informal General Council on Monday, the US offered a quid pro quo for extending the e-commerce moratorium by six months until the World Trade Organization’s twelfth ministerial conference in Nur Sultan, Kazakhstan, in June 2020.

In return, the US has indicated that it will agree to organise a workshop early next year, as demanded by India and South Africa, for assessing the scope and potential revenue implications of electronic transmissions, said a trade envoy, who asked not to be quoted.

Previously, the US had vehemently opposed a proposal from India and South Africa for organising a workshop by experts drawn from the UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development), the ECIPE (European Center for International Political Economy) and the Paris-Based OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) to present their conflicting assessments on what would constitute the e-commerce transmission and their potential revenue implications.