7. The representative of Maldives said that Maldives was no longer an LDC as of 1 January 2011 and a beneficiary of special and differential treatment accorded to the LDCs. Therefore, she wished to inform the Council of the status of its on-going work towards compliance with TRIPS obligations as a non-LDC.
8. The IP regime of Maldives was still in the process of development, although IP protection had been an explicit policy goal of the Government in the past few years. Maldives had joined WIPO in 2004 for the purpose of developing an effective IP regime. Since then, various technical assistance programmes had been sought from WIPO, including technical advice on the establishment of a modern Intellectual Property Office in January 2004. In advising the Government, WIPO had recommended to formulate a national IP strategy based on a careful identification and selection of intellectual property policy options that would best serve the social and economic development needs of Maldives. However, like in many other developing countries, IP remained a novel field for policy makers, the business community and for the general public. Maldives needed sufficient analytical capacity and perhaps examples of best practices to help its policy makers to discuss IP issues and link related opportunities to developmental policies.
9. Notwithstanding these capacity constraints, Maldives had passed a law governing copyright and related rights in October 2010. The Law No 23/2010 had been enacted to establish the standards for copyright and related rights required by the TRIPS Agreement. Furthermore, an Industrial Property Act had been drafted in English. The Industrial Property Act was being translated into Maldives' official language Dhivehi for debate in Parliament. The Copyright Law (Law 23/2010) was presently only available in Dhivehi and was being translated back to English, primarily for the purpose of notification to the WTO. The law was available at http://trade.gov.mv.
10. WIPO's technical assistance, especially in drafting the laws, was of immense value. Maldives and WIPO had agreed on a work programme, the specific aim of which was to fully comply with TRIPS obligations. She expressed her delegation's gratitude for WIPO's support.
11. As she had also mentioned at the General Council's meeting in December 2010, the graduation from LDC status had brought new challenges, which Maldives was dealing with in spite of its vulnerability and lack of capacity. Moreover, Maldives had been undergoing a democratic transition for the past few years that had included the formulation of a new Constitution in 2008 and relevant laws. The on-going work on the legislative agenda had put a heavy burden on Parliament to expedite the laws necessary for the compliance with Maldives' international legal obligations. Nonetheless, Maldives remained committed to its TRIPS obligations and willing to work with relevant organizations and its development partners, including with WIPO, to fulfil the notification and review requirements. She appealed to the understanding of the membership in relation to Maldives' initial notification.
