43. The representative of Egypt said that technical cooperation, including bilateral technical and financial cooperation, should be provided within the framework of the TRIPS Agreement and in accordance with Article 67 thereof, which emphasized the areas of technical cooperation and two groups of beneficiaries, namely developing country Members and least-developed country Members. The purpose of the Article was to facilitate the implementation of the Agreement. The type of cooperation needed was technical and financial. Such cooperation should include assistance in the preparation of laws and regulations concerning the protection, enforcement and prevention of abuse of intellectual property rights as well as support regarding the establishment or reinforcement of domestic offices and agencies relevant to these matters, such as the training of personnel. It was against this background that her delegation had looked carefully into the contributions received from developed country Members. While expressing gratitude for the prompt response to the request for information, she stressed the preliminary nature of these contributions, which did not necessarily comply in an accurate manner with the very clear and specific obligations stipulated in Article 67. A uniform format might be prepared by the Secretariat, possibly on the basis of a questionnaire, with a view to structuring future information so as to make it more illustrative and focus more closely on the requirements of Article 67. Some Members had been concentrating on specific regions in their cooperation; her delegation would like to see such cooperation extended so as to include developing and least-developed countries outside those regions. Most of the cooperation programmes were mainly focusing on training and had been in place long before the adoption of the Agreement. Many of these programmes would need to be fine-tuned and adapted to the new requirements emanating from the Agreement, in particular the obligations in respect of financial assistance. From their side, developing and least-developed countries might also consider presenting their specific needs and evaluating and assessing the type of assistance received. Finally, she referred to the contribution received from UNCTAD (IP/C/W/10/Add.1) and said that her delegation would like to encourage UNCTAD, in collaboration with the WTO, to do further studies and provide technical assistance in order to elucidate the relationship between the TRIPS Agreement and the transfer of technology.
