39. The Chairman said that, at the Council's meeting in March 2011, the Maldives had informed the Council of its graduation from LDC status on 1 January 2011, and it had outlined the state of play of its implementation of the TRIPS Agreement. The Council had agreed to come back to the arrangements for the review of the Maldives' implementing legislation later in 2011, once it had received the necessary notifications of laws and regulations. As mentioned under the previous agenda item, the Maldives had now notified its Law on Copyright and Related Rights. The Maldives had also informed the Council's March 2011 meeting of other on-going work in the area of IP.
40. He said that, in scheduling the review of the Maldives' implementing legislation, enough time should be reserved for other Members to prepare questions to be posed to the Maldives in the context of this review. The Council would also need to ensure that the Maldives would have sufficient time to prepare its responses. Accordingly, he suggested that the Council schedule the review of the Maldives' legislation for the Council's second meeting in 2012, which had tentatively been pencilled in for 5-6 June.
41. In accordance with the standard procedures for the review of legislation, he proposed that the Council set the following target dates for the submission of questions and answers in this review:
• questions should normally be submitted to the Maldives, with a copy to the Secretariat, 10 weeks before the meeting in which the review would take place; accordingly, he suggested a target date of 27 March 2012;
• responses to questions posed within that deadline should normally be submitted four weeks before the meeting; accordingly, he suggested a target date of 8 May 2012.
