The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a science and tech policy think tank, has issued a new report which found that expanding the list of products covered by the Information Technology Agreement (ITA) would benefit the global economy. The ITA is a commitment made by dozens of members of the World Trade Organization to exempt certain IT products from tariffs.
The ITIF said the list of products covered by the ITA has not been updated since 2015, and the organization has identified several hundred additional products that could be included in the list, such as solar cells, industrial robots, 3D printers, commercial-use drones and semiconductor components, according to a press release. The ITIF's report found that including those products in the expanded “ITA-3” would add more than $750 billion to the global economy in the next 10 years.
“The ITA has been one of the World Trade Organization’s most successful agreements, spurring adoption of technologies that drive innovation and productivity across all sectors of the economy. Expanding the ITA would generate significant growth for all nations that participate,” said Stephen Ezell, vice president of global innovation policy at ITIF and a co-author of the report. “A further liberalization of tariffs for the rapidly expanding universe of technologies powered by information and communications technologies would help diversify and improve the resiliency of global supply chains because it would bring more developing economies into the global technology ecosystem. The resulting growth would raise household incomes and support a continued expansion of technology jobs worldwide.”
Eighty-two countries participated in the original signing of the ITA in 1996, and in 2015, 53 additional countries signed the agreement, according to the press release. In its report, the ITIF analyzed the impact the expanded ITA list would have on the economies of the European Union and 21 other countries, including the U.S., and found that all of the countries would see GDP growth as a result over the next 10 years. The countries that would see the largest relative GDP growth would be India, Kenya, Pakistan and Nigeria. Expanding the ITA would lead to the creation of almost 60,000 jobs in the U.S. and an increase of $208 billion for the U.S. economy over the next 10 years.
“Expanding the ITA to cover most cutting-edge IT products would produce considerable economic growth, exports and jobs for the United States and the world,” said Trelysa Long, a policy analyst at ITIF and another co-author of the report. “These products already deliver significant environmental, health and production benefits. Nations would be wise to include them in an ITA-3 to bolster the growth and competitiveness of their own domestic industries.”
