Minutes - TRIPS Council - View details of the intervention/statement

Ambassador Karen Tan (Singapore)
K SEVENTH ANNUAL REVIEW UNDER PARAGRAPH 2 OF THE DECISION ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ARTICLE 66.2 OF THE TRIPS AGREEMENT
166. The representative of Bangladesh thanked those developed country Members who had submitted their reports on the implementation of Article 66.2 of the TRIPS Agreement and for the assistance provided to LDCs. He recalled that the first workshop held in 2008 had been a very useful pathfinder. At the workshop, fruitful discussions had taken place on the implementation of Article 66.2, which had allowed for a better understanding on how to improve the quality of information for the beneficiary LDCs. He thanked the Secretariat for the preparation of the summary of projects and requested the Secretariat to organize a similar workshop in 2010 back to back with the Council's end of year meeting. 167. Supporting the statement by Tanzania, he said that technology transfer was vital to improve productive capacity in LDCs. LDC Trade Ministers had highlighted the need for an effective implementation of the obligation on developed country Members to provide incentives to enterprises and institutions within their territories that achieved effective technology transfer to LDCs, as well as for a monitoring mechanism to review and evaluate to what extent incentives had been given and how far they had resulted in technology transfer to LDCs. 168. He said that (i) Article 66.2 was binding in nature, so far as providing of incentives was concerned and was not of best endeavour type; (ii) reporting should be LDC specific; (iii) reports should focus on the provision of incentives to enterprises and institutions and the resulting transfer of technology; (iv) the specific budgets allocated should be mentioned in the reports; (v) reports should list the specific products; and (vi) reports should be organized per LDC, project and budget allocation. 169. He continued by saying that six years had lapsed since the Council's Decision of February 2003 and it was time to agree on a common format for reporting. Furthermore, there should be a common understanding among developed country Members and recipient LDCs about the provision of incentives, as well as on the definition of "transfer of technology". He wondered whether LDCs could be assured that each and every developed country Member had submitted all periodic reports on the actions taken or planned, as provided for in the TRIPS Council Decision of February 2003. There was a basic difference between Articles 66.2 and 67 of the Agreement. The first one dealt with the provision of incentives to transfer technology to LDCs for creating a viable and sound technological base and the second dealt with technical assistance to both LDCs and developing countries. Most of the reports fell into the second category, which was not the purpose of this annual review. He urged developed country Members to report solely on Article 66.2, and not on Article 67. His delegation looked forward to hearing from developed country Members about the progress and value added achieved since the 2008 reports.
IP/C/M/61