12.1. The Chairman recalled that, at its meeting in June 2015, the Council had agreed to hold its annual review of technical cooperation at this meeting. He suggested that Members also discuss any other issues relating to this agenda item.
12.2. In preparation for the annual review, developed country Members had been once more requested to update information on their technical and financial cooperation activities relevant to the implementation of the TRIPS Agreement in time for this meeting. Other Members who also made available technical cooperation had been encouraged to share information on these activities if they so wished. The Secretariat had issued on 19 June 2015 an airgram (WTO/AIR/IP/4) reminding Members of this request. In addition, intergovernmental organizations observers to the Council as well as the WTO Secretariat had been invited to provide information.
12.3. To date, the Council had received information from the following developed country Members: Japan, New Zealand, Canada, Switzerland, Australia, the United States, and Norway (IP/C/W/610 and addenda). The report submitted by the European Union and individual member States, namely Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom, had been made available as a room document on documents online and would also be circulated as an addendum to document IP/C/W/610.
12.4. The Council had received updated information from the following intergovernmental organizations: FAO, GCC, OECD, WCO, UNCTAD, WHO, UPOV, and WIPO (IP/C/W/609 and addenda). Updated information on the WTO Secretariat's own technical cooperation activities in the TRIPS area was circulated in document IP/C/W/608.
12.5. He said that these reports provided very valuable information both as regards details of specific activities, but also the broader policy considerations that were guiding capacity building activities of individual Members and Observers. Nevertheless, much of this resource remained largely untapped which might also be due to the amount of information provided and the way in which this was done. In order to promote awareness and transparency, the Secretariat had repeatedly suggested that the information about specific activities be reported in table format. It had also provided regular updates with respect to its work aimed at identifying ways of facilitating the submission, processing and circulation of information on technical assistance.
12.6. The representatives of the European Union, Australia, New Zealand, and Ecuador took the floor.
12.7. The representative of the WTO Secretariat took the floor.
12.8. The representatives of the GCC, UNCTAD, WHO and WIPO took the floor.
12.9. The Chairman noted that some of the information had been received only very recently, and most of it was available only in its original language, and therefore proposed to provide Members an opportunity at the next meeting to make further comments on the information submitted for this meeting.
12.10. The Council took note of the statements made and agreed to revert to the matter at its next meeting.
