RESTRICTED  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  G/IT/M/46 
9 October 2006 
 (06-4840) 
Committee of Participants on the Expansion of Trade in 
Information Technology Products  
 
 
  
MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF 21 JULY 2006 
Chairman: Mr. Simon S.M. Chan (Hong Kong, China)
 
Agenda of the Meeting           P a g e  
 
 
1. Review of the Status of Implementation of the Ministerial Declaration on Trade 
in Information Technology Pr oducts (G/IT/1/Rev.37) ..........................................................2  
2. EMC/EMI Pilo t Project.......................................................................................................... ..3 
- Draft List of the Types of Conformity Assessment Procedures for 
EMC/EMI used by ITA Participants (G/IT/W/17/Rev.2) ......................................3 
3. Non-tariff Measures Work Programme (G/IT/SPEC/Q4/19/Rev.2 and 
G/IT/SPEC/Q2/11/Rev.1) ......................................................................................................... 4 
4. Divergences in Classifying In formation Technology Products 
(G/IT/14/Rev.1/Add.1, G/IT/W/6/Rev.3, and G/IT/W/11).....................................................4  
- List V of G/IT/W/6/Rev.3 – Items and Specific Questions Referred to 
the Committee  to be addressed (G/IT/W/15)..........................................................4 
- Updated Summary of Discussions – List V (G/IT/W/20) .......................................4 - Communication from the World Customs Organization (WCO) 
concerning the Classification of Set Top Boxes (G/IT/26)......................................4
 
5. Follow-up Discussions from the IT Symposium.....................................................................6  
6. New Participants ............................................................................................................... ........7  
7. Other Bu siness................................................................................................................. ..........9  
8. Election of Chairperson........................................................................................................ ....9 
 
Introduction 
 
 The Chairman  stated that the proposed agenda for this  meeting was circulat ed in WTO/AIR/2870 
on 11 July 2006.  With reference to the agenda, he as ked if any delegation would wish to raise any matter 
under "Other Business". He stated th at the review of product coverage a nd the date of the next meeting of 
the Committee would be taken up under "O ther Business". The agenda was adopted  with these additions.  
 G/IT/M/46 
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  1. Review of the Status of Implementation of the Ministerial Declaration on Trade in 
Information Technology Products (G/IT/1/Rev.37) 
1.1 The Chairman
 stated that an overview of implementation of the Ministerial Declaration on 
Trade in Information Technology Products was c ontained in document G/IT/1/Rev.37.  This 
document showed the participants and the implem entation issues pertaining to the WTO procedures 
for implementation.  He looked forward to any updates or comments concerning these implementation 
matters.  1.2 The representative of  El Salvador
 informed the Committee that during this week she was told 
that El Salvador had concluded the necessary internal  procedures with a view to ratifying the ITA.  
Next week her delegation would make this official in the WTO, and details on this particular topic 
would be provided.  
 1.3 The representative of the United States
 distributed a communication (G/IT/W/21) and 
apologized for its later arriving, thus, members we re not able to review it ahead of time.  In 
introducing this communication, he said that the pa per identified a potential systemic problem in the 
ITA in that it was now clear that the evolution of  information technology products had been causing 
convergences in ways that could not have been antic ipated when the ITA was originally negotiated.  
For example, one would find that a product that was c overed by the ITA, in particular in Attachment 
B, described the product but did not necessarily gi ve a customs classification. On the one hand, 
something that was covered by the ITA, and then on the other hand, a product that was not covered by 
the ITA, would be merged into a single new product.  Subsequently, the questions would be, did the 
new product retain its position in the ITA or did it basically get ejected out of the ITA as a result of 
this merger of the two products. One would see in pa ragraph 3 of the paper,  cited from the original 
text of the ITA, that "each party's trade regime should evolve  in a manner that enhances  market access 
opportunities for IT products" (emphasis added). The Mi nisters at the time clearly intended that the 
ITA would not wither over time through this technol ogical change, but instead move in a direction 
that would be more liberalising not less liberalising. He  said, in paragraph 5 of the paper, that what his 
delegation was initially proposing was merely informal  consultations under th e Chairmanship of the 
ITA to discuss this and also see if other members would view this as a problem. He indicated that his delegation had some specific products in mind and would like to raise them in this context. He stated 
that if  members in the informal process could agree that this was something worth discussing, his 
delegation could then make it part of the formal work of the Committee. He further added that, as 
indicated in paragraph 5 of the paper, his delegation was also looking towards a system of 
transparency so that as these cha nges occurred, Members who were contemplating classification shifts 
that affected ITA products,  what was formally  duty free would now be subject to duty, would be 
something that could be notified to the Committee so that it could be incorporated into the discussions 
as well.  
 
1.4 The representative of Japan
 reported to the Committee the cu rrent status of the bilateral 
discussion between Indonesia and Japan regarding di gital camera issues. He said that Japan had 
repeatedly requested Indonesia to improve the s ituation, but unfortunately  they could not see any 
improvement, and 15% import duty on digital camer as with the ability to record sequential images, 
which were covered under the ITA, were still maintained.  He further said that as Japan would like to 
solve this problem as soon as possible, his authoriti es had conducted a last-ditch effort with Indonesia 
to find a mutually agreeable solution. Therefor e, Japan strongly hoped to reach a satisfactory 
resolution in this process promptly, but if it fa iled, Japan would have no choice but to request a 
consultation under Article 4 of the Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) shortly.   
 
1.5 The representative of Indonesia  thanked the Japanese delegate for his statement. He said that 
Indonesia fully understood that Japan had some pr oblems with the interpretation of HS 85254010.  
With regard to Japan's in tention of bringing this case to be r esolved under the DSU if there were no 
improvement or progress made by Indonesia, he stro ngly urged Japan to recons ider their position. He  G/IT/M/46 
 Page 3 
 
 
  then proposed that both parties would have anothe r meeting in order to seek a mutually satisfactory 
solution to this matter.  He also indicated  that  he would convey Japan's message to his Capital.  
 1.6 The Chairman
 encouraged the two parties involved to continue their discussions in order to 
find a mutually satisfactory solution.  
 
1.7 The Committee took note  of the statements made under this agenda item. 
 
2. EMC/EMI Pilot Project  
- Draft List of the Types of Conformi ty Assessment Procedures for EMC/EMI 
used by ITA Participants (G/IT/W/17/Rev.2) 
2.1 The Chairman  recalled  that at the Committee meeti ng on 24 February 2005, he referred to 
Section III on Transparency of the Guideline for EMC/EMI Conformity Assessment Procedures 
(G/IT/25), which suggested that a list of ITA partic ipants should be drawn up and categorized by the 
type of assessment procedure adopted. In this conne ction, he raised two issues for the Committee to 
discuss, i. e. (1) information availability;  and (2) st ructure/format of such a list. With respect to the 
first issue,  it was agreed to encourage those par ticipants who had not submitted a survey response to 
do so and those whose situation has changed, to amend their previous submission. On the second 
issue, the Secretariat was asked, as per Section III of the Guideline, to draw up a list indicating for 
each ITA participant which type of conformity assessment procedure it was using based on the information available.  
 
2.2 The Chairman
 stated that at the last meeting of 20 October 2005, he reported to the 
Committee that the Secretariat completed the prepara tions of the draft list, which was circulated to 
participants for verification of the accuracy of the information on 6 September 2005 as document 
G/IT/W/17.  Since then, the Secretariat issued two revisions to G/IT/W/17 to include the updated 
information provided by Chinese Taipei and Jordan with regard to their respective conformity 
assessment procedures for EMC/EMI.     2.3 The Chairman 
said that as indicated by the delegation of Chinese Taipei at the last meeting on  
20 October 2005, IT products that were subject to category (a) conformity assessment procedures for 
EMC/EMI by Chinese Taipei had b een  increased from 19 items to 30 items as of October 2005.  
 
2.4 Concerning the second updated information by Jordan, the Chairman  reported that on 
3 July 2006, he received a communication from the de legation of Jordan, in which he was informed 
that Jordan fell under category (c), which would be : "Supplier's Declaration of Conformity (SDoC) 
type 1 – the supplier or manufacturer of the equipment declares that the equipment meets the technical 
and administrative  requirement. A testing laborator y recognized by the regulator tests the equipment 
and the supplier registers this equipment with the regulator." Previously, Jordan was classified under 
category (g) as applying no mandatory assessment pr ocedures.  With these updates being reflected in 
G/IT/W/17/Rev.2, the Chairman opened the floor for any comments, interventions and new information that delegations might have to update the draft list.   
 
2.5 The representative of China
 informed the Committee that the conformity assessment 
procedure for EMC/EMI that China undertook was certification by 3rd party. i.e. the small letter b in 
document G/IT/25.   2.6 The representative of Canada
 stated that given the importance attached to this pilot project, 
and the guidelines that emerged from this project, his delegation would like to once again thank the 
Secretariat for its efforts in keeping this document up to date. However, while reviewing the tables, he 
noted that for a significant number of participants, the information was not yet available. So, he took G/IT/M/46 
Page 4  
 
  this opportunity to again encourage those Members who had not submitted inform ation yet to do so as 
early as possible. He felt the format provided in the Annex of the document, that the latest revision, 
made it very easy to check and to seek such information from the regul atory body concerned, thus, he 
believed that all efforts had been made to make it as easy as possible for delegations to communicate 
back to their capital and to seek that information. He stressed that Canada would appreciate 
enormously if those participants could provide in formation to the Secretariat as early as possible.  
 2.7 The Chairman
 suggested the Committee take note of the information provided by China and 
the intervention made by Canada.  He encourag ed once again those participants who had not 
submitted a survey response, to do so, and those who se situation had changed, to amend their previous 
submission.  
 2.8 It was so agreed.
 
 
3. Non-tariff Measures Work Program me (G/IT/SPEC/Q4/19/Rev.2 and 
G/IT/SPEC/Q2/11/Rev.1) 
3.1  The Chairman  turned to the issue of the non-tari ff measures Work Programme and recalled 
that the  Committee, at its last meeting of 20 Oc tober 2005, had already had some discussions on what 
the Committee should do next in addition to EMC/EM I. However, as some participants would need 
some time for reflection, it was agreed to revert to this matter at this meeting. From his recent 
consultations with some delegati ons, he understood that participants ' focus was still placed in the 
NAMA context. Nevertheless, as indicated by some  delegations, it was important for this Committee 
and the NAMA group to continue to communicate with  each other effectively. Therefore, he opened 
the floor for the delegations who might wish to sh are any information on their proposals made in the 
context of the NAMA group but also relevant to the ITA.    
3.2 As there was no request for the floor, the Chairman
 suggested the Committee revert to this 
issue at its next meeting.    3.3 It was so agreed
.    
 
4. Divergences in Classifying Information T echnology Products (G/IT/14/Rev.1/Add.1, 
G/IT/W/6/Rev.3, and G/IT/W/11) 
- List V of G/IT/W/6/Rev.3 – Items and Specific Questions Referred to the 
Committee  to be addressed (G/IT/W/15) 
- Updated Summary of Discussions – List V (G/IT/W/20) - Communication from the World Customs Organization (WCO) concerning the 
Classification of Set Top Boxes (G/IT/26)  
4.1 With regard to classifi cation divergences, the Chairman
 stated that the Committee had two 
sub-items, i.e. List V and List III.   For List V, the Committee conducted several rounds of discussions and 
the Secretariat prepared an updated summary as contained in G/IT/W/20.  The Committee now needed to decide on: How to move our discussion forward? What structure the participants would like to use? What 
new questions could be posed to these issues? What would be the expected outcome of the participants? 
At the previous meetings of the Committee, it was pointed out by some participants that these issues were 
no longer technical as technical experts would not be able to resolve them and thus, they were policy 
issues. The Chairman stated that in his consultations with some delegations in March this year, a suggestion was made that, in order to narrow the di fference, the Committee could possibly divide these 
issues under List V into two categories:  one cate gory for the easy issues, for which convergence towards  G/IT/M/46 
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  consensus was foreseeable and could be achieved and some new questions might help to achieve 
consensus;  the other category for the more difficult ones, where  no majority position or no consensus could be achieved. Furthermore, he pointed out that  the Secretariat's updated summary of discussions on 
List V only reflected the views of 7 participants, wh o had provided contributions and inputs, while many 
other participants were still silent with no comments being made.  In view of the current state-of-play in 
the DDA negotiations and the limited time for this meeting, the Chairman said that it was not his 
intention, at this meeting, to engage in any detaile d discussion on these questions as he understood that 
the delegations might need some time for reflection.  4.2 The representative of Canada
 stated that his delegation could go along with the approach 
suggested by the Chairman. He understood that the approach that emerged from the Chair's informal 
consultations would try to identify, in List V, t hose issues where th ere was a good prospect of finding 
a consensus or a common interpretation and isolate those other issues which probably would be more 
challenging to achieve a consensus. He thought that  the documents prepared by the Secretariat were 
the result of a previous brainstorming which took  place in order to address those difficult issues 
contained in List V. It was not an issue of obtaining assistance from the customs classification experts 
but it was more of trying to find the intent of the ne gotiators. He stated that in order to make progress, 
and given the fact that the world, as indicated by th e US delegate under Agenda Item 1, would need to 
deal with the fact that the IT products sector was continually evolving and th at participants did not 
seem to be able to keep pace with that developm ent.  The Committee needed to make progress on the 
issue of divergences in classification. Therefore, he thought that the Chairman's approach made sense. 
In reaction to the Chair's other comment regarding the summary of discussion only reflected the views 
from 7 delegations, he pointed out that perhaps silence could be interpreted in di fferent ways.  It could 
mean that despite efforts to engage  capitals, it was very difficult to get precise views, or it might also 
indicate, as it was, in the case of Canada on several instances, that Canada was relatively flexible and 
that Canada could go along with th e views expressed by others on that issue.  Perhaps, if once the 
Committee had identified those issues that fell under the first category as suggested by the Chairman, 
for example, the Committee could seek some form of confirmation from participants whether they 
could subscribe to the emerging consensus and then, if that was the case, the Committee could remove 
these issues from List V.  He said that the objec tive would be to remove as many items as possible 
from Lists V, IV or III to List I, and participan ts should try to see whether the Committee could move 
towards that objective.   
 
4.3 The representative of the United States  stated that the approach laid down by the Chairman 
did make sense and his delega tion would be willing to proceed along those lines as well.  
 4.4 The Chairman
 thanked the delegates of Canada and th e United States for their statements, and 
proposed that the Committee revert to this sub-item at the next meeting where the Secretariat would 
give some thought to possible categorisation as suggested earlier, unless there were any other 
suggestions.    4.5 It was so agreed
. 
 
4.6 On List III of G/IT/W/6/Rev.3 – classification of set top boxes,  the Chairman  recalled that on 
23 January 2004, the Chairman of the Committee  forwarded this item to the World Customs 
Organization's Harmonized System Committee (WCO HS C) for its classification opinion.  That was 
agreed by the Committee, pursuant to the mandate u nder paragraph 5 of the Annex to the Ministerial 
Declaration (WT/MIN(96)/16). In September 2005, the WCO HSC at its 36th Session took a decision 
on the classification of set top boxes, which was reproduced in G/IT/26 for information of the 
Committee.     G/IT/M/46 
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  4.7 With that decision taken by the WCO HS C on the classification of set top boxes, the 
Chairman
 invited the participants to consider whet her the Committee was in a position to agree to 
remove this item from List III and incorporate it into the other List as appropriate, i.e., List I (A) – 
divergences were narrowed to one classification option  or otherwise.   
 4.8 As no delegation requested for the floor, the Chairman 
suggested the Committee take note of 
his statement and agree to revert to th is sub-item at its future meeting.  
 4.9 It was so agreed
. 
 5. Follow-up Discussions from the IT Symposium 
5.1 With regard to the issue of classification related to the tran sposition of HS96 to HS2002, the 
Chairman
 said that at the last meeting of the Committee it was suggested to discuss this issue again in an 
informal setting before a formal meeting of the Committee, if possible, with the participation of the 
capital-based experts. However, given the busy sc hedule of the delegations in relation to the DDA 
negotiations, an informal meeting could not be arranged be fore this formal meeting. Therefore, he 
suggested that he would undertake further consultations as necessary with a view to holding an informal meeting to discuss the issue of classification. In doin g so, the busy schedules of the delegations would be 
taken into account.    5.2 It was so agreed
.  
 
5.3 Concerning other issues on th e indicative list, the Chairman  stated that at the last meeting, a 
similar approach was suggested, i.e. to hold an inform al meeting to discuss other follow-up issues as well. 
For the similar consideration, he suggested that he would undertake further consultations as necessary 
with a view to holding an informal meeting to disc uss other follow-up issues in the indicative list. In 
doing so, he would again take into account the busy schedules of the delegations.   
 5.4 It was so agreed
.  
 5.5 Before turning to the item on new participants, the Chairman
 raised the issue of organizing 
another event, such as a workshop or a symposium, next year, to commemorate the 10-year anniversary 
of the ITA in view of the increasi ng importance and the rapid development of the IT sector. He said that 
the previously similar events were highly appreciated by many participants. In this regard, he sought 
some preliminary views from the participants about this idea, including the form and possible resources 
for holding this event.   
5.6 The representative of the European Communities
 stated that she could not go into much 
details about the form and so on but  her delegation would like to give  its support in principle to this 
idea.  She said that, of course, participants, w ould have to discuss the timing of such a symposium 
thus, for the moment her delegation just would like to leave it open, but as an idea the EC could support it.   
5.7 The representative of Thailand
 said that, just like the EC, she could not give more details on 
how to arrange a workshop/symposium at the mome nt, but her delegation supported this idea.  
 5.8 The representative of Dominican Republic
 also supported the idea of holding such a 
symposium sometime next year.  
 
5.9 The Committee took note  of the statements made and agreed  to revert to this issue at its next 
meeting.   G/IT/M/46 
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  6. New Participants  
6.1 The Chairman  informed the Committee that further to the participation of the Dominican 
Republic , which became the 68th  participant to the ITA on 7 Ju ly 2006, new requests to become 
participants to the ITA were also received from the United Arab Emirates  and the Socialist Republic of 
Vietnam .  He said that if it was agreeable to the Committee, he would first like to revert to the request 
from the UAE, and then to the request from Viet Nam.    
 6.2 He told the Committee that  the United Arab Emirates
 recently  submitted its draft ITA schedule 
of commitments to the Secretariat, and the Secretariat was in the process of conducting the electronic verification of the draft UAE ITA schedule. As soon as the Se cretariat completed its process of 
verification, the draft UAE ITA schedule would be circulated to all participants for comments. Therefore, 
he suggested that the Committee agree that the schedule  of the United Arab Emirates would be deemed to 
be approved unless any participant notified its objecti on in writing to the Secretariat within four weeks 
from the date of circulation of the draft UAE ITA schedule.  The Secretariat, would also issue a fax to confirm the participation of the United Arab Emirates to the ITA.   
 
6.3 The representative of the United Arab Emirates
 stated that two months ago, his country 
submitted a request to become a member of the IT A. For that purpose, his delegation also submitted 
the draft schedule commitments to the Secretariat. In  this regard, he thanke d the Secretariat and the 
Chairman for their kind help and assistance to the UAE. He said that the Secretariat would soon 
circulate the second draft of the UAE schedule of  the commitments to all ITA participants for 
verification. His delegation hoped this process woul d be concluded as soon as  possible in order to 
facilitate the participation of the UAE to the ITA. His delegation would welcome all comments, 
remarks and questions of other de legations  and proposed that these comments be submitted in written 
form so that his delegation could forward them to the concerned authorities in the capital. His 
delegation, of course, would inform all the delegations of the UAE response.  
 
6.4 It was so agreed . The Committee also took note  of the statement by the UAE. 
 6.5 The representative of the Dominican Republic
 referred to statement made by the Chairman at 
the beginning of this agenda item concerning the r ecent participation of her country to the ITA. She 
told the Committee that, as a party to this agreemen t, her authorities had already initiated the process 
for domestic ratification.  She would like to take th is opportunity to thank the Secretariat for all the 
support it had extended to her delegation in the tec hnical aspect relating to the ITA schedule and its  
review. She also thanked those Participants who had helped the Dominican Republic when they had 
been  consulted on certain technical issues relating to the schedule.   
6.6 The Committee took note
 of the statement by the Dominican Republic.   
 6.7 The Chairman
, then, turned to the request by Viet Nam. He said  that the Viet Nam also recently 
submitted its draft ITA schedule of commitments to the Secretariat and the Secretariat was now in the process of conducting the electronic verification. As soon as the Secretariat completed the verification, 
the draft Vietnamese ITA schedule w ould be circulated to all participants for comments. He, therefore, 
suggested that the Committee agree that the schedule of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam would be 
deemed to be approved unless any participant notifie d notify its objection in writing to the Secretariat 
within four weeks from the date of circulation of the draft Vietnamese ITA schedule. Similarly, the Secretariat, would also is sue a fax to confirm the participation of  the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam to 
the ITA.  
 
  G/IT/M/46 
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  6.8 The Chairman
 also stated that as part of Viet Nam's WTO accession commitments, the 
concessions contained in the ITA schedule would come into effect upon the date of Viet Nam’s accession 
to the WTO and the duty-free treatment for all ITA pr oducts will be achieved within seven years from the 
date of Viet Nam’s participation.    
6.9 The representative of  Viet Nam
 extended his warmest congratul ation and compliments to the 
Chair and Participants of this Committee given that this was the first time for Viet Nam to attend the 
meeting of the Committee. He informed the Committ ee that being in the process of accession to the 
WTO for the last decade, in the most recent 12th Working Party meeting on 19 July 2006, Viet Nam 
and the Working Party Members had basically reach ed a common agreement to finalise Viet Nam's 
accession package in early October 2006.  With a strong determination to open its economy for 
foreign investment in high tech sectors, such as IT, and in order to bring its modest contribution to a 
freer world trading system, Viet Nam had the pleasure , at today's meeting of the Committee, to submit 
its draft ITA schedule to the ITA Committee for Memb ers' consideration and approval. The delegate 
stressed that concessions contained in this draft schedule would come into force after the date of 
Viet Nam's accession to the WTO and would extend duty-free status for all ITA products within a 
timeframe of seven years from the date of Vietna m's accession to the WTO.  By this submission, and 
on efforts in all negotiations within the framework of the Working Party on the accession of Viet Nam 
to the WTO, Viet Nam wished to show its strong desire to become a Memb er of the WTO as soon as 
possible to fulfil its utmost objective of economic de velopment and to be fully integrated into the 
world trading community.  Viet Nam highly a ppreciated the support by all Members and was 
committed to abide by all rules and regulations of  this Agreement once Viet Nam had its full WTO 
membership.   6.10 The representative of the United States
 stated that his delegation was very pleased with the 
prospect of having both the UAE and Viet Nam as par ticipants to the ITA Committee. He said that he 
had no reasons to expect there would be any problems with either of these schedules. He  noted that 
the Chairman was going to circulate, at some point in  the future, Viet Nam's schedule. He said that the 
only potential problem was that if this fell into th e black hole of August and no one saw this, it could 
become a problem because his delegation wanted to look at it before it was finally approved. He 
guessed that the question was, when would Viet Na m's schedule be circulated?  If, for example, it 
could not be circulated until September then there wo uld be no problem, but if it was circulated next 
week then there was a possibility it might be overlooked.  
 6.11 The Chairman
 thanked the US delegate for making this  point and noted, from the Secretariat, 
that the schedule of Viet Nam would be ready for circulation some time next week, and thus, it would 
be issued before the start of the summer vacation. 
 
6.12 The representative of Singapore , also on behalf of several of his ASEAN colleagues, 
welcomed the statement made by the Vietnamese Amba ssador in this Committee.  He said that, in 
their view, the ITA continued to be a very impor tant agreement and they wanted to express their 
support for Viet Nam   
6.13 The representative of Canada
 first welcomed the Dominican Republic as a new participant to 
the ITA, and stated that they were happy with that development.  Like the delegation of Singapore, he 
was also very happy to anticipate the future memb ership of both the UAE and Viet Nam to the ITA, 
and this would move the ITA further towards the goa l of 100% critical mass in the area of trade in IT 
products.  He said that, building on the point of procedures made by the US delegate, the Committee 
could consider leaving more than four weeks for the review.  If it was circulated next week, then four 
weeks would take participants towa rds the end of August and there w ould still be a risk. as the US 
delegate indicated, of falling through  the cracks. He  suggested that the Chairman give an extra 10 
days or two weeks which would a llow delegations to be able to respond by jeûne genevois. In his  G/IT/M/46 
 Page 9 
 
 
  view, this would not excessively delay the process but would allow all delegations to ensure that their 
capitals could take a close and positive consideration of those schedules.   6.14 The Chairman thanked the distinguished dele gate of Canada for his suggestion and proposed 
that the timeframe be extended from four weeks after the circulation, to six weeks.  
 
6.15 It was so agreed
. The Committee took note  of all the statements made.  
 
7. Other Business 
7.1 The Chairman  stated that the issue of the review of  product coverage con tinued to be a matter 
under consultation, and he encouraged de legations to continue their efforts. 
 7.2 The Chairman
 proposed that the Committee's  ne xt meeting be held tentatively on 
31 October 2006, subject to further confirmation.   8. Election of Chairperson 
8.1 The Chairman
 stated that the Committee normally elect ed a new chairperson on an annual 
basis. Pursuant to consultations by the Chairman  of the Council for Trade in Goods, a consensus had 
been informally reached on th e election of Mr. Martin Pospíš il (Czech Republic) as the new Chairman 
of this Committee.  The Chairman proposed the election of Mr. Pospíš il.  
 
8.2 The Committee elected  Mr. Pospíšil   as the new Chairman of the Committee of Participants 
on the Expansion of Trade in Informa tion Technology Products by acclamation. 
 8.3 Mr. Pospíš
il assumed  his role as Chairman of the Committee.  
 
8.4 The outgoing Chairman  (Mr. Chan) expressed his thanks to Members of the Committee, of 
the Secretariat, and the new Chairman.  8.5 The incoming Chairman
, Mr. Pospíš il, expressed his appreciation to the outgoing Chairman, 
Mr. Chan.   
 
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