WTO框架下中国数字产品的关税立场选择

Choice of China on Tariff of Digital Products in the Framework of WTO

WTO主要成员国对数字产品征税的分歧导致WTO一直未能对其形成正式、永久的决议。当前,互联网促进全球经济发展作用突显,中国表明要进一步开放国内市场,WTO主要成员提出重构电子商务规则的诉求,数字产品关税问题将会成为WTO新一轮谈判的重要议题。鉴于此,本文在比较欧美发达国家立场与发展中国家主张的基础上,运用福格尔的"社会储蓄"概念和反事实法估算了数字产品"零关税"的收益与成本,发现互联网为中国贸易带来的"社会储蓄"值与数字产品贸易的顺差额成正比,因此,提出中国继续保持"暂时性"零关税倾向并根据未来数字产品贸易发展状况再行调整的政策建议。

The divergence of taxation on digital products among major WTO members has led to the failure of WTO in forming a formal and permanent resolution on them. At present, the Internet is playing an important role in promoting global economic development. China has stated that it is necessary to further open its domestic market. Major WTO members have proposed to reconstruct the terms of e-commerce. Therefore, the tariff on digital products will become an important issue in the new round of WTO negotiations. In view of this, based on a comparison of the opinions of developed countries in Europe and America and those of developing countries, this paper estimates the benefits and costs of "zero tariff" of digital products by using Fogel’s concept of "social savings" and the antifact inferential measuring method, and finds that the value of "social savings" brought about by the Internet for China’s trade is proportional to the surplus of the trade in digital products. Therefore, it is proposed that China should continue to maintain its "temporary" zero tariff tendency and adjust its policies according to the future development of digital products trade.