Nairobi, Kenya - Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng of China and U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman discussed and reached consensus on the negotiations on the expansion of the WTO Information Technology Agreement on December 16, 2015. They jointly issued the following statement:
- Recalling the negotiations on the expansion of product coverage of the WTO Information Technology Agreement,
- Recalling the important guidance on the ITA expansion negotiations provided by President Xi Jinping and President Obama when they met in Sunnyland, California in June 2013,
- Recalling the important progress made on the expansion negotiations by the two sides during the APEC MRT in Qingdao in May 2014,
- Recalling the important consensus of the two sides jointly announced by President Xi and President Obama when President Obama visited Beijing in November 2014,
- Recalling the Declaration on the Expansion of Trade in Information Technology Products reached by participants in July 2015,
The two ministers have agreed on the staging of their respective schedules. They hope this will provide important momentum to complete the ITA expansion negotiations during the ongoing Tenth Ministerial Conference of the WTO. They also believe that the outcome of the ITA expansion negotiations will promote world IT trade and will further the growth of the world economy.
