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US Relaxes Restrictions on Export of High-Speed Computers
The Clinton administration has relaxed export rules for high-speed business computers in a bid to keep the US high-tech industry competitive in international markets, according to local press reports.
The White House's decision Thursday was the fifth time since 1993 that the government has revised upward the top speed of computers that can be sold overseas without prior government approval.
The revised restrictions doubles to 28,000 million theoretical operations per second (mtops) the speed of computers that can be exported to places including India, Pakistan, the Middle East, the former Soviet Union, China, Vietnam and Central Europe.
The new rules raises from 33,000 to 45,000 mtops the speed of computers that can be exported to countries including those in Africa, South Korea and Central and South America.
No prior government review is needed to export computers to western Europe, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Brazil. The new rules add Argentina to this group of nations.
The government maintains its virtual embargo on computer exports to Iraq, Iran, Libya, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Cuba, Sudan and Syria.
However, the nation's top computer makers say the government's decision Thursday is only a short-term fix that will soon become obsolete because of the lightning speed of technological advances.
"We fully support the goal of maintaining US national security, but restricting the export of business-level computers does not advance this goal," said Lou Gerstner, chairman of IBM Corp. and co-chairman of the Computer Coalition for Responsible Exports.
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