India, South Africa adopt tough stand on e-commerce moratorium

India and South Africa have adopted a tough stand against the current moratorium on levying customs duties on electronic transmissions at the World Trade Organization, forcing the US to come to the negotiating table for the first time, said trade envoys.

The existing moratorium will expire at the end of next month, unless it is extended for another six months. The moratorium has been extended since 1998 on a biennial basis at every WTO trade ministerial conference.

At a meeting of the WTO’s informal General Council on Monday, the US offered a quid pro quo for extending the e-commerce moratorium by six months until the World Trade Organization’s twelfth ministerial conference in Nur Sultan, Kazakhstan, in June 2020.