TradeExperettes webinar on the WTO Ecommerce Moratorium and Women, and the New Markets Lab Survey

The Chair of EFSA’s Legal Committee, Tendi Hlatshwayo of Ozow, represented us at the second TradeExperettes webinar on the “WTO Ecommerce Moratorium and Women”. The WTO moratorium refers to customs duties on electronic transfers. It is a global agreement that is renewed every 2 years – the next renewal comes up in March 2024. (See the lead article above).  Readers will recall that this Newsletter has covered the issue many times since the UNCTAD “non-paper” by Mrs Banga, a researcher at UNCTAD, suggested that developing countries were losing billions of US$ in customs duties. The WTO, OECD and other bodies weighed into the debate, however, after some posturing, India, Indonesia and SA, signed up to the moratorium in 2022. The debate, however, continues – see above, the report on the AfCFTA Digital Protocol. Global interest has resulted in this webinar, and in a new survey which is being carried out by the New Markets Lab, an American think-tank which visited SA in July and met with both EFSA and EFA.