“WORK IN PROGRESS”
The final text is to be presented on Friday during a closed-door meeting at the WTO headquarters in Geneva.
It remained unclear if all the negotiating countries had signed onto the final agreement and how long it would take to implement.
“From our perspective, the text is still a work in progress,” US Ambassador and Deputy US Trade Representative Maria Pagan told reporters on Thursday.
“We have a variety of issues that from our perspective are still outstanding,” she said, pointing for instance to exceptions around privacy and security.
Australia, Japan and Singapore, which have been leading the talks, have said the aim is to facilitate electronic transactions, promote digital trade and foster an open and trusted digital economy.
“This would be the first-ever set of baseline digital trade rules,” Singapore’s ambassador to the WTO Hung Seng Tan said in April.
“It would contribute to the growing e-commerce in our countries by providing greater legal predictability and certainty, against the backdrop of increasing regulatory fragmentation,” he said.
In Friday’s statement, UK Science Secretary Peter Kyle said the agreement aimed “to help people use technology safely by protecting them from fraud while driving economic growth through the digitalisation of trade so it’s faster and more secure”.
