Madam Chair,
Let me congratulate you on your appointment as the chair of this meeting.
Sri Lanka wishes to congratulate Director General Mr Daren Tang and the WIPO Secretariat for making all arrangements to organize this 64th WIPO General Assembly.
Sri Lanka aligns itself with the statement delivered by Indonesia on behalf of the Asia Pacific Group (APG) today and would like to reiterate the importance of ensuring balanced geographical representation in the key decision making bodies of the WIPO.
Sri Lanka has worked in close cooperation with WIPO during the past 10 years in strengthening the IP eco system and capacity building in the country. WIPO Technology and Innovation support centre project is currently being implemented successfully and we have been able to establish 27 TISC centres in the universities and Research Centres.
Enabling IP environment project an initiative by the Asia Pacific Bureau completed 6 years and the stake holder groups have now gained much awareness on IP through this project and currently much attention is given to enhancing commercialization and technology transfer. As a result a special legislation has been passed in implementing an agency to work on this area of work.
We are thankful to WIPO for implementing another valuable project on IP and tourism in Sri Lanka we appreciate if an IP in tourism follow up project to support tourism industry could be launched as tourism is focused as one of the main foreign exchange earning sources for Sri Lanka.
Madam Chair, let me also mention that several copyright programs were launched in Sri Lanka by WIPO during past years and as a result we have been able to create much awareness on the subject and has been able to strengthen the royalty payment mechanism recognizing copyright ownership of creators and also collective management organizations thus assuring economic benefits to the creators. With the support of WIPO we have been able to translate a WIPO copyright publication to one national language.
Allow me to elaborate more on our current projects supported by the ASPAC and the Business solution Division of WIPO. In line with the 2023 IP day theme, ,we have been able to launch a 2 day mentorship program and we hope to support women innovators not only to engage in IP creation but also in protecting IP using different IP tools by continuing with this mentorship project.
We are currently awaiting for the approval of WIPO to launch the WIPO digitization project enabling us to upgrade the IPAS system into next level with an aim to introduce on line filing of IP applications.
During 2023 we hope to ratify the Madrid agreement for international registration of marks and we thank the Madrid Registry of WIPO for extending support to finalize the draft compatible legislation which will be submitted for approval of the parliament.
We have introduced new legislation to register Geographical Indications and hope to launch the new registration process before the end of this year.
We also look forward to work in close collaboration with the IP and Innovation Ecosystems Sector on a project on supporting small businesses to use the IP system effectively.
Madam Chair we also hope to request the WIPO ASPAC division to extend technical support on the formulation of IP policy for the country.
As the above collaborations have shown, WIPO plays a crucial role in helping development and innovation in developing countries, which is critical in today’s interconnected world. Sri Lanka would therefore like to see close engagement of WIPO with developing countries and we particularly would like to emphasise the importance of the Development Agenda and its recommendations towards meaningfully reorienting priorities towards achieving socio-economic advancements in developing countries.
Technical assistance provided by WIPO in this regard in a sustainable manner has been critically important and is much appreciated.
Given the particular important of Genetic Resources and Traditional Knowledge for the countries of the Global South, Sri Lanka adds its voice to the call for common ground to be reached on the issue of financing for the participation of indigenous peoples and local communities in the Diplomatic Conference on Genetic Resources and Traditional Knowledge next year.
Sri Lanka appreciates ongoing close cooperation WIPO maintains with developing countries particularly through the CDIP with emphasis on providing technical cooperation and capacity building needs.
Given that many developing countries, in particular among the least developed and Small Island developing States, continue to lag behind on the IP protection regime, thus impacting their advancing on the Sustainable Development Agenda we underline the need for more concerted efforts on the implementation of the WIPO´s Development Agenda.
We encourage the WIPO to work con consultation with member States and the relevant UN organizations to mainstream the Sustainable Development Goals into the work programmes of all relevant WIPO bodies.
Thank you
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