A two-day symposium to celebrate the 10-year operation of the Information Technology Agreement (ITA) opened at the WTO on 28 March with around 200 participants representing governments, industry and consumers from around the world. This is the third symposium organized by the WTO on Information Technology products.

Director-General Pascal Lamy in his opening speech at the Symposium said that “the rapid evolution of this product sector, which has brought about revolutionary changes to our societies at large, is the reason that this particular sector, among others, merits our special attention”.

The Director-General also mentioned that world exports of ITA products over the past 10 years have more than doubled in dollar terms, reaching US$1450 billion in 2005, with an average annual growth of 8,5 percent. Today 70 WTO Members, representing 97 percent of world trade in IT products are participants to the ITA.