38. The Chairperson recalled that, at the previous meeting, the delegation of Hong Kong, China had presented a non-paper outlining a proposal for "Technical Assistance on TRIPS Notifications between WTO Members", which it had jointly submitted to the Council with a number of other Members. The discussion that had followed had shown that there was no objection in the Council to this proposal for assistance on a voluntary basis and that the sponsors should feel free to proceed. Since then, a formal submission on the matter had been received from the delegations of Australia; Bangladesh; the European Communities and their member States; Hong Kong, China; Norway; and Zambia. As outlined in this document (IP/C/W/241), Members who were interested in offering assistance under the scheme were invited to notify the TRIPS Council through the Secretariat as soon as possible with a designated contact point. To date, three such notifications had been received, namely from Hong Kong, China, Australia and the European Communities and their member States, and had been circulated under the IP/N/7- series of documents. A list of Members offering assistance under the scheme would be available in the IP/C/W/- series of documents shortly. Updates of the list would be issued whenever other donor Members joined the scheme.
