Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) have made progress in regulating electronic commerce, but they still need to speed up the course of negotiations to achieve significant progress.
For now, WTO members have concluded, at the meeting of 5 February 2021, a negotiating text on unsolicited commercial messages, also known as spam, as indicated by the note of the organization.
The coordinator of the negotiating group, Ambassador George Mina of Australia, stressed that this is a milestone in this area. “It is the result of creativity, flexibility and efforts by members to achieve a balance,” he said.
2021 is a decisive year for the e-commerce initiativeIn this regard, Ambassador Mina stressed that Members must step up the pace of negotiations to meet the goal of achieving significant progress before the Twelfth Ministerial Conference (MC12), scheduled for this year.
Openness, transparency and inclusion
In his opening remarks, Ambassador Kazuyuki Yamazaki (Japan), co-coordinator of the initiative, reiterated the Basic principles of negotiations: openness, transparency and inclusion. She also highlighted the progress made on issues such as electronic signatures and electronic authentication through the work of these groups and the facilitators. “Looking ahead, there will be more areas to address in the small group discussions,” she said.
Challenging areas
Ambassador Yamazaki said it is important to have intensified discussions in challenging areas such as issues related to data and market access to achieve a high-level outcome. At the same time, he stressed the importance of achieving ministerial commitment in the run-up to MC12, as this would provide political impetus to accelerate and guide the negotiations.
Recall that the WTO negotiations on e-commerce issues were launched in Davos, Switzerland, in January 2019 with the participation of 76 members. The number of participants now stands at 86. The participating members are seeking to achieve a high-level outcome based on existing WTO agreements and frameworks, with the participation of as many of their members as possible (among the 164 WTO members).
Currently, discussions cover six main themes: enabling e-commerce, openness and e-commerce, trust and e-commerce, cross-cutting issues, telecommunications, market access.
Aduana News is the first Argentine customs newspaper to launch its digital version. With 20 years of experience, its publications and initiatives aim to provide the most relevant knowledge on customs issues in order to contribute to safe trade in the region.
