WTO, NAMA, DOHA and ITA
The WTO in Geneva is recognized as the organization dealing with world wide trade issues. In order to understand what it exactly is they are doing some background is needed as well as its history. This part of the lecture will reveal most highlights and references to GATT and the Uruguay Round.
The importance of NAMA and NTB’s is covered in the second part. NTB’s are a controversial subject. They are considered to be a real obstacle in International Trade.
Especially within the EU, where almost everything is liberalized, NTB’s are often seen as one of the few things to tackle. In ongoing Trade negotiations the issue of NTB’s is often raised but difficult to tackle since they are not always clearly identified and Industry can sometimes be reluctant to reveal these because it is sometimes easy to track which companies have raised those. As such Trade organizations can add real value in this process. Points can be raised from an Industry standpoint and sometimes a combined effort of Trade associations operating in the largest markets, such as the so called “Trilateral” in ICT-CE can really make things move.
The third part handles the DOHA round. This not only because it is considered as one of the largest en maybe most important one after GATT, but also its impact on Globalization, taking the issue with developing countries into consideration.
Finally the presentation touches the Information Technology Agreement, since this is by far the largest Agreement ever signed in our ICT sector with huge impact and a very difficult ongoing agenda in terms of living up to what has been agreed upon and update the Agreement due to technological innovation.