Digital Discourse / Archives for trade

SIIA Weighs in on China’s Trade Practices at Issue at USTR

September 24, 2012 By

Today, SIIA filed the comments with the United States Information Technology Office (USITO) in the annual review of China’s compliance with its accession commitments to the World Trade Organization (WTO). The review is held by the United States Trade Representative (USTR).

The comments cover a broad range of concerns on the part of the US tech industry aimed at improving trade and investment in China, including China’s indigenous innovation policies, intellectual property rights, market access and technical barriers to trade, national treatment, communications services and commercial Internet regulations.

The annual USTR review provides USITO and its members an effective means to recognize areas where progress has been made, to raise issues of concern and suggest approaches to resolve areas of disagreement with China’s government over implementation of its WTO agreements.

USITO is the leading independent non-governmental policy organization focused on the technology industry in China. USITO acts as the joint office in China of several U.S.-based trade associations representing the high-tech industry, including SIIA, the Information Technology Industry Council, the Semiconductor Industry Association, TechAmerica and the Telecommunications Industry Association.

I will be testifying on behalf of SIIA and USITO at the USTR’s hearing on these issues on October 3, along with Jimmy Goodrich, Director of Global Policy at the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI), and Brian C. Toohey, President & CEO of the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA).

Mark MacCarthy, Vice President, Public Policy at SIIA, directs SIIA’s public policy initiatives in the areas of intellectual property enforcement, information privacy, cybersecurity, cloud computing and the promotion of educational technology. Follow the SIIA Public Policy team on Twitter at @SIIAPolicy

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Filed Under: Policy, Policy - Intellectual Property Tagged With: , ,

USITC Report Explores Int’l Dimensions of Cloud Computing, Examines Policy Challenges and Potential Solutions

May 22, 2012 By

A recent article published by the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) provides an overview of the global market for cloud services, and an excellent resource for policymakers’ questions about cloud computing and how to enable greater adoption.

At a time when policymakers around the world are struggling to keep pace with the rapid pace of technological change and the growth of cloud computing, the article explores the role of cloud computing in U.S. exports and examines the international dimensions, providing a concise overview of the key policy areas that are implicated as the cloud industry grows globally, and the ongoing attempts to address these challenges. As U.S. industry experts and cloud providers know, the key policy challenges associated with cross-border cloud computing and ensuring the seamless flow of information worldwide revolve largely around concerns associated with data privacy, security and localization requirements.

A major contribution of the study is the new set of estimates regarding the contribution of cloud computing to U.S. services exports. When a U.S. firm or foreign affiliate sells cloud computer or software services to an overseas customer, this counts as an export and favorably impacts the US balance of trade in services. But localization requirements can hurt these exports. As the office of the United State Trade Representative said in its 2012 Telecom Trade report, “…restrictions on data access and transfers are becoming more consequential trade barriers.”

The study helps us understand just how damaging these trade barriers could be for the growth of our software and computer services firms. It finds that in 2010, U.S. firms exported cloud services worth almost $1.5 billion from their U.S. facilities to customers in other countries. In 2009, they exported an additional $1.4 billion of cloud service to foreign purchasers from their affiliates located abroad. The study concludes that “cloud computing is already a source of significant revenue for U.S. exporters and multinational firms.”

In the absence of trade barriers, cloud exports could become much more significant in the years ahead. Cloud provision of software and computer services is the future of the industry and is growing much faster than the overall growth of these markets. Gartner estimates that global revenue from all software sales will increase 8.4% per year through 2015 – from $244 billion in 2010 to $347 billion 2015, while the cloud provision of software will increase much faster – 22.6% per year from $10.0 billion in 2010 to $21.3 billion in 2015 (see ITC study p. 6). Gartner estimates that global revenue from computing services will increase 22.6% per year through 2015 – from $791 billion in 2010 to $983 billion in 2015, while forecasting that cloud computing services will grow from $4.1 billion in 2010 to $22.0 billion in 2015, a dramatic growth rate of 87.3% per year (see ITC study p. 6). The potential growth of cloud exports in a world without trade barriers is enormous.

Importantly, the article highlights that governments around the world have sought to address these key policy challenges through domestic policies, bilateral agreements, and multilateral institutions. On the international level, approaches have included establishing non-mandatory, best-practice guidelines as well as binding commitments. The article cites many sources in describing both approaches as important: the former may be developed rapidly and are more able to keep pace with technological change, while the latter emerge more slowly, but provide investors a greater sense of certainty about countries’ policies.

Additionally, the article compares the role of developed and developing countries, concluding that developing countries have played a smaller role than developed ones in the market for cloud services and international policymaking related to the cloud, citing the developing countries lack of infrastructure and domestic policies to more fully develop their cloud industries. Finally, case studies of India and China provide evidence of the great potential for growth of cloud computing in developing countries, while highlighting the divergent approaches, challenges and opportunities that these countries are seeking to overcome.

David LeDuc is Senior Director, Public Policy at SIIA. He focuses on e-commerce, privacy, cyber security, cloud computing, open standards, e-government and information policy.

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Filed Under: Policy, Policy - Cloud Computing Tagged With: ,

SIIA Signs on to Industry Letter Opposing India’s New Protectionist Procurement Rule

March 6, 2012 By

SIIA strongly opposes the new procurement rule that imposes a 30% domestic content requirement on an ill-defined range of electronic products and services.  It is bad enough that the rule explicitly targets laptops and computers, but it could also extend to any software, application or electronic content that the Indian government might deem to be covered.  SIIA’s members in the software and digital content industries are deeply concerned by this development and urge the U.S. government to engage strongly with the government of India to rollback this protectionist policy.  Allowing the policy to stand not only increases the risk that India will extend it to other sectors, but also that other countries will seek to imitate it.

Katie CarlsonKen Wasch is President of SIIA.

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APEC Makes Progress on Trans-Pacific Partnership

November 15, 2011 By

Over the weekend, the U.S. worked with its Pacific partners at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Honolulu to provide significant support for a new Pacific Rim trade agreement.  The leaders announced their acceptance of a framework for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a regional free trade agreement comprising the United States, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.  Another important development over the weekend was the announcements by Japan, Mexico and Canada that they were interested in the negotiations. USTR released a fact sheet outlining the negotiating framework.

The agreement would coordinate regulations in the Pacific region and would be the basis for building the rules for international trade and investment in the region for years to come.  This endorsement by the region’s high-level leaders commits them to the success of the TPP initiative. It gives political momentum to the effort to craft a 21st century trade agreement for the region, and raises the hope for a final agreement in 2012.

SIIA members are particularly interested in forward movement on the provisions the U.S. has tabled regarding intellectual property protection and cross-border data flows. SIIA looks favorably at the agreement the U.S. reached with the EU in the area of information and communication technologies (ICT). In particular, SIIA supports the principles on cross-border data flows and local infrastructure and recommends that similar provisions be included in the TPP.

Under the principle on cross-border data flows, governments should not prevent service suppliers of other countries, or customers of those suppliers, from electronically transferring information internally or across borders, accessing publicly available information, or accessing their own information stored in other countries. According to the local infrastructure provision, governments should not require ICT service suppliers to use local infrastructure, or establish a local presence, as a condition of supplying services.

These principles are similar to the ones SIIA, NFTC and other associations recently endorsed on cross-border data flows.  They are needed to ensure that content companies can reach customers and subscribers in different jurisdictions and that the benefits of economic growth, innovation and job creation from ICT services such as cloud computing are fully realized.

SIIA looks forward to working with negotiators from the U.S. and our trading partners to craft a workable agreement on these provisions that will boost trade, investment and jobs in the region.

Mark MacCarthy, Vice President, Public Policy at SIIA, directs SIIA’s public policy initiatives in the areas of intellectual property enforcement, information privacy, cybersecurity, cloud computing and the promotion of educational technology.

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Filed Under: Policy, Policy - Intellectual Property Tagged With: , ,