China pushes tariff talks close to brink

Advocates for an expanded global pact to remove tariffs on a range of information and communications technology products hope to make a final push this week to seal a deal, despite China's inflexibility that has pushed negotiations to the brink of collapse.

Trade representatives from around the world are in Geneva for the final round of talks to broaden the scope of products covered by the Information Technology Agreement (ITA), a tariff-cutting scheme which was established by a group of World Trade Organisation members in 1996.

While negotiating teams from other WTO members have made compromises and cut deals, China's delegation failed to table any revised offer at the end of talks on Friday, according to John Neuffer, a senior vice-president for global policy at US-based advocacy group Information Technology Industry Council.

"Its negotiators offered nothing new and interesting beyond the oversized sensitivities list it produced during the last round of talks in October," Neuffer wrote in a blog post from Geneva at the weekend.

China arrived at talks last week with a large "sensitivities list" of 140 products, which it wants excluded from the negotiations or have longer tariff phase-out periods.

The ITA negotiations have about 250 products being considered for duty-free treatment.