464. We wish to thank South Africa for including this agenda item. Chile wishes to reiterate that the TRIPS Agreement is based on intellectual property not as an end in itself, but as a tool for development. The minimum standards of protection and flexibilities envisaged in the Agreement therefore enable Members to establish or adapt intellectual property systems in line with their national realities, ensuring an appropriate balance at local level between IP rights and obligations.
465. Chile continues to encourage the use of flexibilities when designing balanced intellectual property systems that act as a tool to foster innovation while addressing the needs of society as a whole. In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have witnessed how all of mankind has joined forces to address and overcome COVID-19 as a shared problem.
466. At the multilateral level, Chile and other Members have agreed on initiatives such as the WHO's C-TAP and the expansion of the Medicines Patent Pool's mandate, which encourage voluntary approaches to ensure that in the future we do not face the same problems that occurred at the beginning of the year and that continue to affect many Members. We have also seen how this pandemic has inspired an innovation exercise at the global level, one that is not necessarily based exclusively on IP, but rather on solidarity.
467. In Chile, the pandemic has generated an important discussion at the legislative level on the use of the various flexibilities of the TRIPS Agreement, and we are therefore interested in engaging in dialogue to share experiences of how IP has fostered innovation in the different areas mentioned in South Africa's document and in others, and of how flexibilities have been used to address problems such as the one we are currently facing.
