152. The representative of the Secretariat said that, while the Secretariat would report more fully on its TRIPS-related technical cooperation activities to the next session of the Council, he wished to take this opportunity to inform the Council in regard to the follow-up by the Secretariat to the provisions on enhanced technical cooperation in the TRIPS Council Decision of 29 November 2005 on the extension of the transition period for least-developed country Members. He recalled that paragraph 2 of the Decision provided that "with a view to facilitating targeted technical and financial cooperation programmes, all the least-developed country Members will provide to the Council for TRIPS, preferably by the 1 January 2008, as much information as possible on their individual priority needs for technical and financial cooperation in order to assist them taking steps necessary to implement the TRIPS Agreement". Paragraph 3 of the Decision concerned technical and financial cooperation to be provided by developed country Members and paragraph 4 technical assistance and capacity building by the WTO in cooperation with WIPO and other international organizations. Paragraph 4 provided that "[i]n order to assist least-developed country Members to draw up the information to be presented in accordance with paragraph 2, and with a view to making technical assistance and capacity building as effective an operation as possible, the WTO shall seek to enhance its cooperation with the World Intellectual Property Organization and with other relevant international organizations".
153. The Secretariat had received requests from ten least-developed countries for national workshops this year, which it welcomed. Two of these had already been undertaken and the remaining eight were scheduled for the second half of the year. The Secretariat was suggesting to each of these countries that the workshops should include components geared towards the type of needs assessment foreseen in paragraph 2 of the Decision, and this could include a separate meeting with key officials for this purpose.
154. He also informed the Council that, in response to paragraph 4 of the Decision and based on the WIPO-WTO Cooperation Agreement of 1995 and also the Joint Initiative on Technical Cooperation in Favour of LDCs by the Directors-General of the two Organizations, it was envisaged that the eight remaining workshops this year would either be organized jointly with WIPO or that WIPO would provide a resource person. He expressed his appreciation of the contribution that WIPO was willing to make in this regard.
155. The WTO Secretariat had reached its capacity limits as far as workshops for LDCs in 2006 were concerned. However, he urged interested LDCs to include a workshop in their technical cooperation requests for 2007 and to give the Secretariat as much notice as possible in this regard in the light of the provisions of the Decision. WIPO had also agreed to support these activities next year and had further indicated that it would take into account the needs assessments foreseen in paragraph 2 of the Decision in its own technical cooperation activities in favour of LDCs wherever feasible.
