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Trade Groups Eye Customs Accord
by William New
Ten international business groups are calling for an agreement at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to simplify and harmonize customs procedures.
The groups, including the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and various shipping-related associations, have formed the Business Action for Trade Facilitation. The coalition is pushing for trade facilitation, which is WTO parlance for measures to expedite cross-border trade, as a target for agreement in the current round of WTO talks. The coalition also will look at business efforts to meet tighter security requirements without interfering with trade.
The groups said they are seeking an agreement to start negotiations on trade facilitation immediately after the WTO ministerial in Cancun, Mexico, in September. At the launch of the current WTO round, in Doha, Qatar, in November 2001, member governments agreed to consider a trade-facilitation agreement but did not commit to it.
The business associations represent tens of thousands of companies that have a vital interest in cross-border movement of goods, ICC Secretary Maria Livanos Cattui said in a Tuesday statement. WTO rules on trade facilitation would go a long way toward reducing costs, speeding the flow of goods and improving security, she said.
'Considerable Uncertainty' Clouds Trade Picture
The WTO on Wednesday released its world trade figures for 2002, saying that the prospects for 2003 look shaky despite some improvement last year.
"Considerable uncertainty clouds trade growth prospects for 2003," the WTO said in a release accompanying the report. Projections are that growth will be less than 3 percent, less than the average of nearly 7 percent in the 1990s. Turmoil in the Middle East, global health fears and other factors are at play in the prediction.
The news comes as WTO nations are struggling to elevate their commitment to open trade by the midway point in the current round of negotiations -- at the September ministerial in Mexico.
The report did show 2.5 percent growth in merchandise trade in 2002 from the previous year, driven by strong demand in the United States and the big Asian economies. That compared favorably with a 1 percent decline in 2001, WTO said. Trade growth outpaced world output and was uneven. The overall growth masked lower numbers for other regions, such as Latin America and Western Europe.
In the fourth quarter of 2002, trade growth flattened for both the United States and western Europe, according to the report. The slowed growth at the end of 2002 reflected the continued low levels of investment in major developed markets and Latin America.
The report linked less investment in machinery and equipment in 2002 to lower use of capacity in the manufacturing sector, particularly information technology and telecommunications. Worldwide expenditures on electronic equipment, IT hardware and semiconductor plants continued to contract, the report said.
In Asia, moderate gains in IT output helped the six economies with a high share of electronic goods in their exports but was not enough to bring recovery from a severe contraction in 2001.
Europe In Pursuit Of More Intelligent Vehicles
The European Commission is expected to issue two proposals on road safety in June, one a general framework and strategy and the other a detailed plan on how the commission will promote the use of information technology to improve road safety in Europe.
The IT proposal would make recommendations on how to promote the development, deployment and use of "intelligent, integrated road-safety systems," according to Erkki Liikanen, the European commissioner for information society, whose directorate is preparing the proposal. Liikanen discussed the proposal at an eSafety forum in Brussels, Belgium, on Tuesday.
The role of the commission will include vehicle-type approval procedures, telecom regulation, and addressing liability, standardization and other obstacles to the introduction of the new road-safety systems, Liikanen said.
Liikanen said a deadline is near for European Union nations to implement a rule requiring public telephone networks to make information on the location of wireless callers available to emergency responders for all calls made to the emergency number 112. The countries still are developing the infrastructure to route the calls, which will originate from within vehicles, he said.
He also said better data on the causes of accidents is needed for industry and political decision-making. He said a priority would be to avoid new regulations but still find ways for governments to promote safety systems and technologies. New research is needed on minimizing driver distraction and workload from in-vehicle communication systems, he added.
Liikanen said he is aware of the increased cost, power consumption and weight of the introduction of sensors, actuators, electronic components and subsystems. But he said industry has shown the ability to innovate on safety.
Ireland Signs $600 Million Outsourcing Deal
The Bank of Ireland has awarded a seven-year tech contract to Hewlett Packard, the company said in a statement last week. The $600 million deal is the largest contract ever signed in Ireland, the company said.
HP will manage the bank's desktops, midrange servers, mainframes, networks and printing systems, as well as provide customer support and integration assistance. About 500 Bank of Ireland employees will be transferred to HP.
Also in Europe, Agcom, Italy's telecom regulator, has announced that it will reduce Telecom Italia's prices for wholesale, high-speed Internet service by 10 percent to 19 percent. The move is an effort to boost competition in the country's broadband Internet market, according to Agcom. The decision follows a merger announcement by the boards of Telecom Italia and parent company Olivetti that is pending shareholder approval.
And elsewhere, Papua New Guinea and the Syrian Arab Republic are the latest countries to ratify the World Intellectual Property Organization's Patent Cooperation Treaty, the organization announced recently. Once they take effect on June 14 and June 26, respectively, their commitments bring the number of acceding states to 120, including the United States.
The ratification means that patents approved in any of the participating countries will be recognized in Papua New Guinea and the Syrian Arab Republic, and that their citizens may seek patent protections under the treaty.
'E-stonia' Emerges As Tech Tour De Force
A decade ago, the former Soviet republic of Estonia had little available technology or connection to the world from behind the Iron Curtain. But now the country, sometimes called "E-stonia," has emerged as one of the world's most savvy information societies, USA Today reports. A recent ranking by the World Economic Forum put Estonia eighth out of 82 countries in putting the Internet to use, second in online banking and third in e-government.
Internet banking is so popular in Estonia, used by half of the country's 1.4 million people, that many bank branches are closing. Seventy percent of Estonians own mobile phones, and many of them never had wire-based phones. The country's second-largest bank has begun offering a service for mobile phones to be used as debit cards at restaurants, hotels and gas stations.
Part of the credit for the tech takeoff goes to the creation of 500 public computer centers and heavy use of the Internet within government. A flood of investors from Nordic countries has helped, too. For instance, Swedish software developer Niklas Zennstrom worked with three Estonian programmers in 2000 to write Kazaa, now the Internet's most downloaded file-sharing program.
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