Ambassador Mero (United Republic of Tanzania)

Bénin au nom de Pays les moins avancés

10 Fourteenth Annual Review under Paragraph 2 of the Decision on the Implementation of Article 66.2 of the TRIPS Agreement

310. On behalf of the LDC Group, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the eight partner countries which have reported on their activities on this matter. We welcomed yesterday's Workshop. It gave us the opportunity to have an exchange of views and to get much information from our partners. By the same token, our partners had the opportunity to exchange information with us and to hear what different people are doing. We are most grateful to our partners who work with us and provide us with support in the whole area of the transfer of technology. 311. I would furthermore like to say the following: we took the opportunity to put some questions to our partners and as they have said there were some questions put to us and the replies are ready. They have already been sent out and I do hope that they will be available to our partners shortly. We would like to take this opportunity to invite developed countries that have not yet submitted their Annual Report to follow the example of the eight partner Members working with us. It would be most useful for LDCs if other countries were to report. We eagerly await such reports as we find them extremely useful. 312. In conclusion, and this is particularly for the attention of the Secretariat, it would be most useful for these reports to be available in the WTO's official languages. That will make it much easier for us to work with our capitals. This time around we did have a lot of difficulty in responding to all of the reports because most of them were in English and not all the LDCs are English-speaking. We would be grateful if the Secretariat could help us avoid such problems in the future. This is what this delegation wishes to say on behalf of the LDC Group and we would like once again thank you for having led yesterday's Workshops so well.

The Council took note of the statements made and agreed to revert to the matter at its next meeting.

49. The Chairman said that, under a Council decision of February 2003, developed country Members were to submit annual reports on actions taken or planned in pursuance of their commitments under Article 66.2. They were to provide new detailed reports every third year and updates in the intervening years. The fifth set of detailed annual reports under this procedure had been presented to the Council in October 2015. In June 2016, the Council had requested developed country Members to update their annual reports in time for the present meeting, and the Secretariat had circulated a reminder.

50. The Council had received updates to the annual reports from Japan, Australia, Switzerland, Norway, Canada, the United States and New Zealand, circulated in document IP/C/W/616 and addenda. The report submitted by the European Union and individual member States, namely Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Slovakia, 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/616.

51. Paragraph 2 of the Council's Decision on the Implementation of Article 66.2 of the TRIPS Agreement explained that the annual review meetings provided Members with an opportunity to pose questions in relation to the information submitted and request additional information; discuss the effectiveness of the incentives provided in promoting and encouraging technology transfer to least developed country Members in order to enable them to create a sound and viable technological base; and consider any points relating to the operation of the reporting procedure established by the Decision.

52. Since some of the information had been received only very recently, and most of it was available only in its original language, the Chairman said that he intended to give Members an opportunity to make further comments on this information at the Council's next meeting.

53. At the request by LDC Members, the Secretariat had organized a workshop on transfer of technology under Article 66.2 back-to-back with the Council's end-of-year meeting. The ninth in the series of annual workshops had been held on 7 November 2016, bringing together LDC and developed country experts to discuss this matter at a very practical level, building on the earlier workshops. The Chairman said that he had personally taken part in and welcomed the constructive exchange of views that was useful to both LDC and developed country delegations. In order to record the questions posed to reporting developed country Members on the occasion of the previous workshop held on 19 October 2015, a compilation of these questions had been circulated to delegations.

54. The representatives of the European Union, Australia, the United States, Switzerland, Japan, New Zealand, Benin on behalf of the LDC Group and India took the floor.

55. The representative of the Secretariat took the floor.

56. The Council took note of the statements made and agreed to revert to the matter at its next meeting.

IP/C/M/83, IP/C/M/83/Add.1