WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONWT/GC/W/376
19 October 1999
(99-4475)
General Council Original:  Spanish
PREPARATIONS FOR THE 1999 MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE
Proposal on Electronic Commerce
Communication from Venezuela
The following communication, dated 11 October 1999, has been received from the Permanent
Mission of Venezuela.
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Ministers should agree to:
1. Foster an environment which will limit the application of regulations not provided for under
the GATT and/or GATS or TRIPS which could discourage the development of electronic commerce,
taking into consideration the reports of the various Committees or other reports provided for under the
WTO Agreements. Ministers agree to guarantee the particular needs of developing countries as
regards special and differential treatment and the po ssibility of ensuring appropriate policy spaces
related to the development of electronic commerce in all its forms, especially with respect to access to
and transfer of technology.
2. Accept that the rules of the GATT, GATS and TRIPS are applicable to electronic commerce.
3. Accept that all GATS provisions are applicable to electronic commerce and that other
provisions should be evaluated in future, as and when any such provisions are defined.
4. Set up a single working group to pursue the evaluations begun by other committees in
accordance with the mandate of the Ministers of the Geneva Ministerial Conference, as well as the
practice of not taxing electronic transactions until negotiations in the Round are concluded, or until
such time as the final results of the aforementioned evaluations are produced and Ministers have
sufficient information to make a final recommendation.
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