XN000022-1996-01-26 — Page 10

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Regional Seminar on Intellectual Property Rights held in HK

The Regional Seminar on Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement, held from January 22 to 26 in Hong Kong under the auspices of the Hong Kong Customs and Excise Department, the Customs and Tariff Bureau of the Ministry of Finance, Japan and the World Customs Organisation (WCO), was concluded successfully today (Friday).

Participants of the seminar came from 19 WCO member states and territories in the Asia and Pacific region. They proposed to accept the June 1994 WCO Council Recommendation on intellectual property rights (IPR) and to model their own national legislation on the June 1995 WCO Model Legislation for the implementation of the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement concluded in 1994.

Participants also suggested that MOUs should be concluded between regional customs administrations and the private sector and that member administrations should facilitate information exchange by supplying data to the WCO's IPR database for effective and efficient IPR protection enforcement.

They concluded at the seminar that customs administrations of the region should enhance their risk management techniques and effective enforcement by making full use of trade information.

As a closing remark, all participants proposed to convene another regional seminar on IPR enforcement to follow up on the progress by member administrations in their implementation of the recommendations made at this meeting.

End

HK celebrates International Customs Day

The Secretary for Trade and Industry, Miss Denise Yue, today (Friday) attended a reception hosted by the Customs and Excise Department to mark the 1996 International Customs Day.

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