Minutes - TRIPS Council - View details of the intervention/statement

Ambassador Carlos Pérez del Castillo (Uruguay)
Korea, Republic of
F.i Updated information on technical cooperation activities
37. The representative of Korea said that APEC member economies had agreed to exchange information on the current status of implementation of the TRIPS Agreement and, based on the information exchanged, Korea would hold in June 1999 a technical cooperation symposium to assist in implementation of the Agreement. The budget for this symposium would be funded from the APEC Trade and Investment Liberalization and Facilitation Special Account. Since the symposium would be held only six months before the end of the transition period for developing country Members, Korea had attempted to select themes and programme details relating to specific issues where particular problems lay or which merited a focused discussion, rather than carry out a comprehensive review on the basis of the whole of the TRIPS Agreement. In consultation with the member economies that were expected to participate, Korea had finalized the main themes of the session and arranged a more open-ended question and answer session. As the programme aimed at a successful implementation of the TRIPS Agreement among APEC economies by 2000, it called for the cooperation and understanding of specialists with authority in government as well as businesses. In this context, the symposium was extending invitations to 42 governmental officials from 14 member economies, such as Brunei Darussalam; Chile; China; Hong Kong, China; Indonesia; Malaysia; Mexico; Papua New Guinea; Peru; the Philippines; the Russian Federation; Chinese Taipei; Thailand; and Vietnam. Twelve professionals would take charge of instruction at the symposium: seven experts from member economies that had implemented the TRIPS Agreement and five experts from the private sector or international organizations.
IP/C/M/23