[Federal Register Volume 64, Number 96 (Wednesday, May 19, 1999)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 27437-27438]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 99-12842]
[[Page 27435]]
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Part VI
The President
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Proclamation 7196--World Trade Week, 1999
Proclamation 7197--National Defense Transportation Day and National
Transportation Week, 1999
Presidential Documents
Federal Register / Vol. 64, No. 96 / Wednesday, May 19, 1999 /
Presidential Documents
___________________________________________________________________
Title 3--
The President
[[Page 27437]]
Proclamation 7196 of May 17, 1999
World Trade Week, 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 users--not 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.
[[Page 27438]]
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 two
hundred and twenty-third.
(Presidential Sig.)
[FR Doc. 99-12842
Filed 5-18-99; 11:25 am]
Billing code 3195-01-P
