Moratorium on customs duties for web commerce concludes

Yaoundé. The World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial meeting in Cameroon concluded without agreements on key issues such as reform, e-commerce and agriculture, amid high tensions between India, Brazil and the United States.

As a consequence of this failure, the WTO moratorium exempting electronic commerce from customs duties, in force since 1998, came to an end. A hard setback for the developed countries that demanded its renewal.

However, this does not mean that tariffs will automatically be imposed. But “the inability to reach a political agreement is especially worrying in this period of strong tensions in the global economy,” said the secretary general of the International Chamber of Commerce, John Denton.