Singapore Backs Removing Curbs to Chip Trade, Aims to Do More to Enable Green Tech, Rep Tells WTO Panel

GENEVA - Delegates to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Public Forum in Geneva this week have called for the lowering of restrictions to trading the components that enable green technologies, particularly semiconductors, and other information and communications technology (ICT) products.

In particular, the president of US lobby group Semiconductor Industry Association, Mr John Neuffer, called for a third-round expansion of the WTO Information Technology Agreement (ITA) to eliminate tariffs on some 400 ICT parts and products.

The ICT product categories proposed for so-called ITA3 coverage include semiconductor manufacturing and next-generation chip technologies, as well as lithium-ion batteries and energy efficiency and storage devices, among other new and emerging ICT products and technologies.

This could add more than US$750 billion (S$1.02 trillion) to the global economy over 10 years, according to estimates provided by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a Washington-based public policy think-tank.