43. The Chair recalled that the Council had conducted the Twentieth Annual Review under Paragraph 2 of the Decision on the Implementation of Article 66.2 of the TRIPS Agreement at its meeting in October 2022. At that meeting delegations from developed country Members had briefly presented the updated reports they had submitted under Article 66.2, and the Council had agreed that it would revert to the item at the present meeting to permit continued consideration of the submitted material. He also recalled that, in July 2020, the LDC Group had circulated a new submission entitled "Proposed New Template for Annual Reporting under Article 66.2 of the Agreement on Trade-related Intellectual Property Rights" in document .
44. In order to give LDCs more time to absorb the information provided by developed country Members in their reports, and to ensure that these reports were available in the working languages of the WTO, the Secretariat had once again organized a "Workshop on the Implementation of the Article 66.2 of the TRIPS Agreement" which had taken place on 14-15 March 2023, immediately preceding the meeting. The Chair indicated that a number of capital-based delegates who had participated in that Workshop were present at the meeting.
45. The Chair asked the Secretariat to report on this Workshop.
46. A representative of the Secretariat took the floor.
47. The representatives of Bangladesh, on behalf of the LDC Group; Tanzania, on behalf of the African Group; Sierra Leone; the United Kingdom; Nepal; Benin; Bangladesh; Switzerland; Haiti; Mali; the United States of America; the European Union; Australia; Japan; Canada; Norway; Malawi; and Sudan took the floor.
48. The Council took note of the statements made.
