63. Responding to the intervention of the representative of Bangladesh, the representative of the European Communities stressed that the European Communities and their Member States had a long tradition of providing extensive technical assistance on intellectual property to developing countries. By way of example, he referred to the technical cooperation made available to the Member States of ASEAN by the EC in its single biggest assistance programme, the value of which amounted to about US$ five to six million; a new programme of a similar size was under preparation. He wished to underline that, if a country was not on the list of recipient countries at present, that should not be taken to mean that the country was excluded from EC technical assistance. He said that technical cooperation was provided on a bilateral basis and invited Bangladesh to contact the European Communities if assistance was needed.
