Monday, May 24, 1999

 

Volume 35, Issue 20; ISSN: 0511-4187

 

Proclamation 7196--World Trade Week, 1999

William J Clinton

 

 

� Proclamation 7196-World Trade Week, 1999

 

 

� May 17,1999

 

 

� By the President of the United States of America

 

 

� A Proclamation

 

 

� World Trade Week provides a valuable opportunity to recognize the

enormous importance of exports to the United States economy and our

way of life. In recent years, exports have contributed to almost

one-third of our economic growth, helping to make today's economy

the strongest in a generation. Unemployment is at a 30-year low,

business investment is booming, and private sector growth is on the

rise. Every day, an increasing number of U.S. companies and farmers

realize how crucial exports are to their bottom lines. Every day,

more and more American workers benefit from the fact that exporting

firms pay higher salaries, experience fewer closings, and generate

jobs at a faster rate than do firms that do not export. That is why

we must continue to open markets and expand trade opportunities. At

the same time, we must work to ensure that increased international

trade benefits the world's people, promotes the dignity of work, and

protects the environment and the rights of workers.

 

 

� As important as world trade is to our economy today, we are only

beginning to utilize the commercial potential of the newest

international marketplace: the World Wide Web. Today the Internet

connects nearly 150 million people around the world. Each day 52,000

additional Americans join that number, and users are making as many

as 27 million purchases on the Web each day. Forecasts predict that,

in just a few years, global electronic commerce-e-commerce-will grow

to more than $300 billion annually. By 2005 Internet usage in

countries around the world may account for more than $1 trillion

worth of global commerce.

 

 

� Recognizing the enormous power and promise that e-commerce holds

for American businesses and consumers, my Administration is working

to build a framework for global electronic commerce that will keep

competition free and vigorous, protect consumers, guarantee privacy,

and give usersnot governments-the responsibility of supervising

Internet trade. Working with the Congress, industry, and State and

local officials, we have enacted legislation that places a 3-year

moratorium on new and discriminatory taxes on electronic commerce.

We also ratified an international treaty to protect intellectual

property online. Last year, representatives of 132 countries

followed our lead and signed a WTO Ministerial Declaration to

refrain from imposing customs duties on electronic commerce.

 

 

� Working with our trading partners, industry, and consumer

advocates, we are extending traditional consumer protections to the

arena of electronic commerce. Without imposing burdensome

regulations that might stifle growth and innovation, we have offered

incentives to online companies to give consumers the protections

they need to conduct business on the Internet with security and

confidence. Finally, we are working to speed the completion of the

global information infrastructure, a series of networks that sends

messages and images at the speed of light.

 

 

� Appropriately, the theme of this year's World Trade Day observance

is "Trade, a Worldwide Web of Opportunity." Linking businesses and

customers around the clock, 7 days a week, the Web provides even the

smallest companies with the opportunity to do business on a global

scale. We are about to enter a new and unprecedented era in world

trade, and America's businesses, workers, and consumers are poised

to embrace this opportunity and continue our leadership of the world

economy.

 

 

� Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton, President of the United

States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the

Constitution and laws of the United States, do.hereby proclaim May

16 through May 22, 1999, as World Trade Week. I invite the people of

the United States to observe this week with events, trade shows, and

educational programs that celebrate the benefits of international

trade to our economy.

 

 

� In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this seventeenth

day of May, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and

ninety-nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America

the tvo hundred and twenty-third.

 

 

� William J. Clinton

 

 

��[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 11:25 a.m., May 18,

1999]

 

 

� NOTE: This proclamation was published in the Federal Register on

May 19.