The International Chamber of Commerce is urging the World Trade Organization (WTO) to support the continuation of the moratorium on Customs Duties on Electronic Transmission at the WTO’s 13th Ministerial Conference in March 2024.

This is coming from the fear of historic setbacks if the WTO allows the moratorium to expire.

The Chamber in a statement said it is clear that the continuation of the moratorium is critical to the ongoing Covid-19 recovery.

Again, the continuation of the moratorium is important to supply chain resilience for manufacturing and services industries, manufacturers, among others.

“It is clear that the continuation of the moratorium is critical to the ongoing Covid -19 recovery. As detailed by organizations like the United Nations, the World Bank, the OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development], and many others. Continuation of the Moratorium is also important to supply chain resilience for manufacturing and services industries, manufacturers, both large and small industrial sectors, rely on the constant flow of research, design and process data and software to enable their production flow”.

“Think-tanks in India, Indonesia, Switzerland, and Belgium and around the world with organisation like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), OECD, World Bank, United Nations and many others have discussed the risks of ending the moratorium. As the OECD has explained the overall revenue implications of the moratorium are small, tariffs on electronic transmissions would hit low–income country trade the most”, it added.

It concluded that the G20 also seeks to establish a more stable and fairer international tax system and endorsed the OECD inclusive frameworks’ solution to address the tax challenges arising from the digitalization of the economy.