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Enron Mail |
Forwarded at request of Joe Hillings:
---------------------- Forwarded by Lora Sullivan/Corp/Enron on 12/10/99 12:03 PM --------------------------- "Robert C. Fisher" <RCFisher@HillsandCo.Com< on 12/10/99 10:48:15 AM To: Joe Hillings/Corp/Enron@ENRON cc: "Carla A. Hills" <CAHills@HillsandCo.com<, Erin Endean <EMEndean@hillsandco.com<, "Edward A. Casey, Jr." <EACasey@HillsandCo.com< Subject: WTO -- E-Commerce Joe -- I had a conversation this morning with Jonathan McHale at USTR on the status of E-commerce after Seattle. McHale said that the E-commerce moratorium put in place by ministers in May 1998 was schedule to run through the Third WTO Ministerial (i.e. Seattle). Since that Ministerial was suspended (and not formally ended), the US view is that the moratorium is still in effect. As to the work done in Seattle, McHale observed that the E-commerce people had reached a fair degree of consensus on an extension of the E-commerce moratorium, a work plan to look at the applicability of the WTO's rules to E-commerce, and a commitment about not imposing unnecessary regulations on E-commerce. Since the Ministerial was suspended, that progress is in limbo, and the US and other WTO members are considering how best to proceed. I asked him about the comments attributed the EU officials that the EU would agree to an extension of the E-commerce moratorium only if other countries agreed to the EU's assertion that all E-commerce falls under the WTO services agreement (GATS). He said that the US would never agree to that, and that other countries shared the U.S. position. As to next steps, he suggested that it would be important for companies to go through the current WTO commitments and the UN's Central Product Classification (CPC) code to make sure that whatever E-commerce activities they are engaged in are covered. I mentioned the work we are doing on energy services, and he said the work in E-commerce in analogous -- we should go through and see what services already are covered, and let USTR know if we think that something we are doing is not covered and needs to be brought into the service definitions. In other words, define who we are, what barriers we face (or what areas need to be kept barrier free), and what our key issues and markets are. As Enron considers what its interests are in E-commerce, you probably will want to think both about the activities you are directly engaged in, and those activities your customers are engaged in. For example, the benefits of having the pipeline (i.e. bandwidth) unencumbered by tariffs or unnecessary regulations would be limited if the products delivered over the pipeline were subject to significant restrictions. McHale was very open, and I expect he would be pleased to meet with Enron if you wanted to get into a more detailed discussion of the issue. Regards -- Bob
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