China calls for early conclusion of treaty talks

China hopes that the long-delayed international negotiations on adding more tech products to a tariff-free treaty backed by the World Trade Organization will be put through soon, a senior trade official said on Tuesday.

"The government has been actively participating in the dialogue. We have made great efforts (during negotiations) and wish an agreement will be reached as soon as possible," said Shen Danyang, spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce.

Shen's comments came after the WTO said 54 of its members are close to a deal that will expand the 20-year-old Information Technology Agreement and eliminate tariffs on an additional list of 201 products valued at about $1 trillion in annual trade across the globe.

The products to be put on the list include new-generation semiconductors, global positioning system navigation equipment and medical equipment, such as magnetic resonance imaging products and ultrasonic scanning apparatus, according to the WTO.

The negotiators were asked to hand in a feedback of the product list to the WTO before Friday.

When the product list and draft declaration are approved, the members will spend several months hammering out the technical details and the timetable for tariff elimination, according to the ministry and the WTO.

Once finalized, the ITA 2.0 will be the first tariff-cutting agreement in the WTO for 18 years.

Industry insiders said the new deal will benefit both Chinese tech buyers and local technology firms, which are looking to sell products outside the country.

Imported tech products are likely to lower their prices to compete with local vendors after China stops collecting double-digit tariffs.

Kitty Fok, director of industry consultancy International Data Corp China, said: "I think this is good news for Chinese customers. To ensure information communication technologies are more affordable to everyone's daily life is important."

Chinese tech firms, especially smartphone makers, will also have a bigger edge selling products overseas.

Top local manufacturers, such as Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, Xiaomi Corp and ZTE Corp, are all looking to tap into West Europe and the United States using handsets with good performance and affordable prices.

"We are set to have a bigger advantage in product prices if the tariffs can be reduced to zero," said Jeff Yee, vice-president and technology planning and partnerships at ZTE USA. ZTE, based in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, mainly sells mid-price range smartphones in the US.

Zero tariff will also be a good news for overseas companies operating in China, which spent over $200 billion on information technology products and services in 2014.

The US and European medical equipment providers will find it easier to compete with local companies, which dominate the market now. Tariffs on semiconductors, GPS devices, printer ink cartridges and an array of other products will be cut to zero under the deal, according to the US Trade Representative Office.

Companies such as Seiko Epson Corp and Hewlett-Packard Co stand to benefit in the printer market, while foreign GPS navigator makers will still need to alter their products in order to pass regulatory checkups. Navigators sold in the country need to embed China's own Beidou system.

IDC estimated Chinese IT spending will reach $256 billion by 2018, accounting for more than 10 percent of the global total. The ITA was finalized in 1997 and covers 80 WTO members.