39. The representative of Japan informed the Council that, since April 1996, Japan had been carrying out a cooperative program, called the "1000 by 2000 Programme". Its aim was to provide training on intellectual property rights to one thousand trainees from developing countries by the year 2000, which was the time-limit for developing countries to comply with the TRIPS Agreement. Training was being provided to people both in government and the private sector. By March 1998, over five hundred trainees had been accepted and, thus, half of the target had been achieved. Japan would continue to provide assistance to developing countries by accepting the rest of the target trainees and by providing further courses. Japan was also promoting an IP Information Mall project in the APEC forum. This project was aimed at expanding information dissemination via the Internet by linking the homepages of the IP offices in APEC member countries. Japan was currently surveying the users' needs for IP information via the Internet with a view to improving the IP Information Mall further. The representative of Japan believed that the IP Information Mall would be helpful to other countries providing technical assistance to APEC countries.
