134.   Thank you, Chair, for the opportunity to present the Secretariat's report on the sixteenth Annual Workshop on the Implementation of Article 66.2 of the TRIPS Agreement: Incentives for Technology Transfer to LDCs, which took place over the past two days. 135.   We offer our sincere thanks to you, and to their excellencies Ambassador Hassan of Djibouti and Ambassador Rahman of Bangladesh, for your invaluable support for the Workshop. This highlevel engagement has been indispensable in ensuring that the Workshop contributes substantively to the work of this Council and is responsive to the needs and priorities of LDC Members. 136.   We are also most grateful to each of the representatives and experts of the participating LDC and developed country Members. Participants included capital- and Geneva-based experts from 18 LDC Members and from nine developed country Members. Their substantive contributions, active engagement and commitment to dialogue ensured the success of the Workshop. 137.   As part of the continuous efforts to respond most effectively to the needs and priorities for technology transfer identified by our LDC Members, and at the request of the LDC Group, the Secretariat prepared a note comprising a summary of responses to the survey that the Secretariat developed and circulated as an optional tool in 2021 and 2022. This note is circulated as room document RD/IP/52 in both English and French. The Secretariat would welcome comments, suggestions as well as further input for improvement. 138.   We would like to highlight several general observations. The four fields of technology that LDC Members most commonly reported as priorities for technology transfer were environment and climate change, agriculture and food, public health and pharmaceuticals, and information and communication technologies or ICT. These priority fields of technology coincided to a significant extent with the actual technology programmes reported. Other priority technology fields include manufacturing, construction, infrastructure and transport, and mining. 139.   Concerning the range of incentives presented in the reports, the survey of LDC Members most commonly identified as relevant government-sponsored and funded joint research and development activities, including the dissemination of knowledge and skills. Building on these survey results, this year's Workshop focused on further strengthening the capacity of LDC Members to identify their priority needs for creating a sound and viable technological base. This, in turn, would enable the more precise focusing and tailoring of incentives for promoting technology transfer to LDCs to enhance their relevance and impact. Attention was also paid to how to measure impact, with some discussion covering the importance of tracking sustained impact. 140.   To this end, we also invited our sister international organizations to share their experience and expertise as well as to report on their activities in supporting LDCs to undertake needs assessments for technology transfer in various priority fields. We therefore warmly thank our WIPO, WHO and UNCTAD colleagues who significantly enriched the discussion, and welcome the further strengthening of our collaboration and practical cooperation in this vital area. 141.   The Workshop was also grounded in the considerable practical insights provided by experts from LDC Members who presented on their national experiences and challenges in identifying needs and priorities for technological development, and in seeking to respond to those needs, once identified. Experts from developed country Members also shared their experiences with tailoring technology transfer programmes, and their impact on LDCs' priority needs whilst providing updated and complementary information to their respective reports submitted in 2022. The Workshop concluded with a roundtable discussion which enabled LDC participants to give their feedback on these reports. 142.   In an effort to improve the value and impact of this annual dialogue between LDC Members and developed country Members, the Secretariat compiled key messages from Workshop participants and speakers in the form of an informal resource document, which was made available in both English and French. The Secretariat also continued its practice of preparing a summary on the technology transfer programmes reported by the developed country Members. The summary presented at the Workshop provided an overview of these programmes reported in 2021 and 2022, as part of one reporting cycle, with a focus on agriculture, environment, and public health as the three priority fields for technology transfer. 143.   This summary only seeks to build on the continuous efforts to enhance transparency, and to provide an overview of the detailed and diverse information contained in the reports. The compilation is purely a factual resource, and it does not attempt to analyse or interpret the reported information. As advised to the Council at its last meeting, the Workshop comprises a workshop segment and a reporting and review segment within the formal meeting of the Council. Therefore, we have arranged for the attendance of capital-based LDC participants at today's Council meeting as their national delegations, and again thank them for participating in this agenda item. 144.   We conclude by expressing deepest appreciation to our Members for their continuing guidance and support for this work, and in particular, the close guidance and engagement of the LDC Group. We look forward to Members' further guidance arising from today's Council discussion.