377. The representative of Switzerland thanked Tanzania for presenting its priority needs assessment to the Council and Rwanda for providing further information on its earlier priority needs assessment, as well as the Secretariat for its continuing efforts to assist LDCs in establishing their priority needs assessments and bringing together LDC and developed country Members and other relevant stakeholders to discuss the needs assessments and explore possibilities for the funding and provision of technical cooperation. He was convinced of the importance of the TRIPS Agreement in providing a safe and reliable regulatory framework for the protection of IPRs in world trade and in incentivizing economic growth. He was also convinced of the importance for all Members, including LDCs, of the implementation of the TRIPS Agreement at the national level. While this was first and foremost the responsibility of each individual Member, he acknowledged the importance of technical and financial cooperation in order to assist LDC Members in taking the necessary steps.
378. WTO Members had confirmed their commitment to this task when they had extended the LDC transition of period until July 2013. Switzerland had contributed to the WTO regional workshop for the Asia-Pacific region in July 2010 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It had been a fruitful exercise contributing to a better understanding, both for the LDCs and developed country Members and other stakeholders, of the challenges and the opportunities that lay in this process. Time had been reserved for bilateral contacts between LDC delegations present and participating developed country delegations. The priority needs assessment submitted by Bangladesh had enabled Switzerland and Bangladesh to hold well-informed, focused and useful discussions on the needs for technical assistance in the area of IPR and TRIPS implementation, which had allowed Switzerland to identify areas where it could offer assistance.
379. Both countries were currently in the identification phase for a focused bilateral technical assistance project under Bangladesh's priority needs assessment. He hoped that a planning mission to Dhaka could take place at the beginning of 2011. Bangladesh's priority needs assessment was an example of a very comprehensive inventory of needs for assistance in the area of intellectual property and TRIPS implementation, and Switzerland could only provide for a fraction of the assistance that was requested. He hoped that other potential donor countries would further support Bangladesh and the other LDC Members that had submitted their own priority needs assessments.
380. Switzerland had, as a potential donor country, limited resources, both human and financial, to provide such technical assistance. For the sake of efficiency and efficacy, in selecting potential LDC partners for technical cooperation, Switzerland needed to give priority to LDCs in which it had already substantial experience and resources for development cooperation. Further technical assistance requests could be answered and assistance given in IP areas where Switzerland was in a position to provide the required high level expertise.
381. Considering that other potential donor countries might face similar constraints, good coordination was a key importance for the work under Article 67 of the TRIPS Agreement. Coordination between potential recipient and donor countries, and between donor countries themselves, was needed to inform countries involved the types of assistance and partners. Furthermore, coordination with other important stakeholders like WIPO, UNCTAD and others was needed to avoid duplication and to ensure coherence and sustainability of assistance. Another key issue was coordination with existing multilateral funding mechanisms, in particular the Enhanced Integrated Framework. He encouraged LDCs, following the example of Uganda that had expressed its intention to do so, to introduce systematically their TRIPS priority needs assessment also in their diagnostic trade integration studies for the EIF.
382. He was looking forward to continuing bilateral contacts with Bangladesh to explore how Switzerland could assist in its efforts to implement TRIPS obligations at the national level, and expressed his appreciation of the WTO Secretariat's efforts to facilitate contacts of the various stakeholders under Article 67.
