Industry Groups Push for WTO E-Commerce Progress After Text Is Issued

Inside US Trade, January 26, 2021

By Isabelle Icso

Following the circulation of a consolidated text last month, more than 70 industry groups from around the world are pushing for the further advancement of plurilateral e-commerce talks ahead of the next World Trade Organization ministerial conference.

The international industry associations this week called on negotiators of the WTO Joint Statement Initiative (JSI) on e-commerce to secure an agreement that 'can help realize the promise of cross-border access to technology and the trusted movement of data across regions,' as they wrote in a Jan. 26 letter.

Joseph Whitlock, director of policy for BSA, told Inside US Trade the letter 'reflects a broad consensus among associations in different sectors from many countries across six continents for common sense rules.'

Among those rules, he added, should be provisions 'that prohibit discriminatory or unnecessary data localization mandates and data transfer restrictions; that require countries to adopt or maintain a framework to protect personal information and that support interoperability among different domestic legal frameworks.'

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Original Posting: https://insidetrade.com/daily-news/industry-groups-push-wto-e-commerce-progress-after-text-issued