Doha Round - March Report

Date: Monday, February 24, 2003 11:30 AM

H-1B and JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

www.ZaZona.com

The H-1B and L-1 visa laws are mandated by the GATS agreement. At the
end of March we will get to see what the globalists have in store for
American workers. This article gives a few hints.

1) In Doha, WTO members agreed to submit requests for liberalizing
other countries' trade laws by June 30 and to submit their offers to
liberalize by March 31, 2003.

2) Other goals include getting countries to remove barriers to the
movement of business personnel who provide IT services.

Analysis:
The globalists want to get rid of ALL BARRIERS to the movement of
workers. The yearly limit on H-1Bs (visa cap) is considered one of
those barriers. Harris Miller of the ITAA said that he will begin
lobbying to increase or eliminate the yearly cap this spring. Perhaps
he intends to kick off his effort when the globalists release their
report.

http://www.uscib.org/%5Cindex.asp?documentID=2084

National Journal's Technology Daily

May3, 2002

Industry Targets Services, E-commerce In WTO Round

By William New

The U.S. high-tech industry has much to gain in the current round of
free-trade negotiations at the World Trade Organization judging by the
submissions filed with U.S. negotiators this week.

In comments by the May 1 deadline at the Office of the U.S. Trade
Representative, industry targeted the negotiations on services,
e-commerce, intellectual property protection and customs procedures.
The current set of negotiations, referred to as the Doha Round because
it was launched at the WTO ministerial in Doha, Qatar, is expected to
conclude in mid-2005. In Doha, WTO members agreed to submit requests
for liberalizing other countries' trade laws by June 30 and to submit
their offers to liberalize by March 31, 2003.

Industry groups and companies that submitted comments to U.S.
negotiators included: the electronics group AeA, the Business Software
Alliance (BSA), Competitive Telecommunications Association, Information
Technology Association of America (ITAA), Information Technology
Industry Coalition (ITI), National Association of Manufacturers,
Semiconductor Industry Association, Verizon Communications and the U.S.
Council for International Business. EDS, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel,
Microsoft, Oracle, Sun Microsystems and VeriSign also made a collective
submission.

Many industry groups sought to emphasize the growing importance of
information technology services. They argued that one objective of U.S.
negotiators should be to obtain commitments for full and equal access
to markets for computer and related IT services in countries that have
not already made full commitments.

Another objective -- summarized in the submissions by ITI, ITAA and
BSA, among others -- would be to ensure that IT services, including
those delivered electronically, continue to be covered by the General
Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) commitments on computer and
related services. ITI's submission is identical to that of the
collective group of tech firms on the services negotiations. All IT
services such as consulting, outsourcing, Web hosting, computer
maintenance and repair, IT training, and services related to software,
data-processing, databases and security -- should be covered by the
GATS, they argued.

Other goals include getting countries to remove barriers to the
movement of business personnel who provide IT services, open government
procurement process and open markets for IT services necessary to
create the infrastructure for e-commerce and electronically delivered
services. The services negotiations officially began in early 2000
because they were carried over from the last round of multilateral
negotiations in Geneva, known as the Uruguay Round.

Beyond services, industry seeks harmonization of countries' testing and
certification requirements for IT products, better enforcement of
intellectual property commitments, and greater adoption of the World
Intellectual Property Organization's digital treaties. They also called
for refraining from restrictive regulatory measures, including taxes.
BSA insisted that software downloaded from the Internet be treated the
same as traditionally acquired software, which currently is considered
a good, not a service.

SIA singled out China for a commitment to make purchases based solely
on commercial considerations. Several groups raised the need to update
the Information Technology Agreement, completed in 1996, under which
signatory nations drop tariffs on specified products.

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