YAOUNDE, Cameroon — A group of World Trade Organization (WTO) members including the Philippines agreed on Saturday to sidestep adoption hurdles for the world’s first baseline on digital trade rules, opting to bring the agreement into force among consenting participants, the WTO said.
In recent years, efforts by a group of countries to fold the E-Commerce Agreement into the WTO rulebook were twice blocked by dissenting members. The pact aims to foster an open environment for digital trade.
The push to accelerate entry into force, among members who represent 70 percent of global trade, stems from mounting frustration over those obstructions, a senior diplomat told Reuters. Under WTO rules, plurilateral agreements among subsets of members require consensus.
At the 14th WTO Ministerial Conference in Cameroon, 66 members settled on an interim arrangement to activate the deal within their countries while pursuing broader incorporation into the WTO framework.
“For developing members like the Philippines, the E-Commerce Agreement provides a valuable framework to support MSMEs participation in global trade by enhancing trust and improving digital connectivity,” Trade Undersecretary Allan Gepty said in a joint press release.
“The interim arrangements mark an important step toward predictable, modern digital trade rules and their integration into the WTO framework.”
In a statement sent to The Manila Times, Gepty said the deal was “especially important for the Philippines given that our economy is heavily anchored on services such as IT-BPM (information technology-business process management), and we view e-commerce as a good platform for our MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) to be integrated in the global economy.”
He also said that it was “important for the Philippines since our stakeholders will be dealing with the rest of the world under a clear set of rules in e-commerce such as e-signatures, e-payments, electronic invoicing, paperless trade, promotion of interoperability, online consumer protection and personal data protection, among others.”
“This complements our E-Commerce Act, Data Privacy Act and the Internet Transactions Act of 2023, as well as our various FTAs (free trade agreements) where we have chapters on e-commerce or digital trade.”
The E-Commerce Agreement calls for the adoption of legal frameworks recognizing electronic transactions and the use of electronic records, signatures and payments, among others, to facilitate and modernize global trade.
The 66 WTO members, which include Singapore, Japan, China, Canada and the European Union, will “proceed with their respective domestic procedures” and the agreement will come into force for the 45 that had signified acceptance.
They committed to push inclusion of the agreement into the WTO legal framework and urge all other members of the trade body to join.
Full implementation across the WTO is expected to boost global gross domestic product by $8.4 trillion by 2040. Low and lower-middle-income economies — the Philippines is classified by the World Bank as one of the latter — are expected to particularly benefit.
Japan’s State Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Yamada Kenji, hailed it as a “historic step” toward global digital trade rules.
UK Business and Trade Secretary Peter Kyle also welcomed the move.
“As the first global digital trade deal, this will make trade cheaper, faster and more secure for businesses around the world,” he said.
India has been one of the main countries blocking a deal, arguing that trade agreements should be adopted multilaterally by consensus.
The United States is not among the 66 countries to sign up for the agreement, with the issue currently under review by its government.
The agreement is separate from an e-commerce moratorium that bans customs duties being placed on digital downloads and streaming, which is currently the subject of a political deadlock between the US and India at the WTO meeting in Cameroon.
