White Paper Trade Rules and the Digital Economy Key Points and Findings

Huawei | Trade and the Digital Economy | White Paper Key Points and Findings
Key Points Explained
01
At Huawei we are uniquely placed across a very broad swathe of the digital economy, selling
equipment and network management services to operators, providing cloud computing
services to both operators and a range of other services providers across different industry
verticals, as well as selling devices and wearables to consumers. As such, we can claim to be playing from
a position of some strength as we attempt to define and articulate our interests, particularly in those
product segments like network equipment and devices where we have recently emerged as an industry
leader. Nevertheless, our broad engagement across such a wide range of industry segments also means
there is some potential for misalignments between different customers and stakeholders. Because of our
size and the breadth of our engagement, the rule of thumb for us at Huawei will be that what is good for
the global ICT industry as a whole will be good for us as a company. This is likewise bound to be true in
areas of international rule making that target trade and investment in the digital economy.
02
Opinions tend to differ on how profound the changes are that have been wrought by the
digital economy and whether or not we are at the end or just the very beginning of an age
of new digital innovation. Regardless of where one stands on this particular question, the
productivity gains and the welfare‐enhancing innovation we have seen in the last 20 years are all too readily
apparent even to casual observers. The powerful capabilities of digitization and the internet to instantly
reproduce and disseminate knowledge at almost zero cost has ushered in far‐reaching and often disruptive
changes to a range of industries, especially those whose goods and services can be rendered into a series
of ones and zeros. This is yet another important and distinctly unique characteristic of the digital economy
that must be taken into account when trying to negotiate new rules to govern international trade in this
space.
03
The digital divide is a very real phenomenon and recent research has shown that it is getting
deeper, meaning that the disparities in access and capabilities (and ultimately access to
opportunities in the digital economy) between the connected and the unconnected are
widening even as more and more people come online in one way or another. This is something that many
in the international community, including private sector players like Huawei, are working hard to address.
And here also, there may be a role for trade rules, since negotiating outcomes can be harnessed to help
mitigate shortfalls in developing countries on both the demand and the supply side, through instruments
like technical assistance, aid for trade, or concessional loans tied to the realization of carefully conceived
and articulated targets in trade agreements.
04
At Huawei, like at almost every other player in the digital economy, we are forced to
confront inconsistencies and uncertainties in terms of market access and the treatment we
encounter once we have entered a market. This is unfortunately a reality of doing business
today although internationally negotiated rules and recognized best practices can be useful tools in both
fostering predictability and creating a level playing field on which Huawei and our industry partners can
compete. We see our role here as cooperating with, and where called for, advising and educating
policymakers on the best possible choices for them in terms of achieving their policy objectives and
refraining from imposing measures that unnecessarily distort trade or unfairly favor one set of industry
actors to the detriment of another.
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