Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Hoang Tuan Anh had a meeting with General Director of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) Francis Gurry on February 17 in Geneva to discuss ways to promote future cooperation between the two sides.

At the meeting, the guest and the host deliberated long and short-term cooperation plans between Vietnam and the WIPO.

They focused on assessing the compatibility of Vietnamese laws with international conventions, towards building and bettering laws on protecting copyright; assisting in raising public awareness of intellectual property rights and Vietnam ’s other related rights as well as building long-term development strategies on copyright.

Francis Gurry said that the cooperation between the Vietnamese Government and the WIPO has developed ceaselessly over the recent years.

He stressed that Vietnam reached great economic achievements thanks to its appreciation of the important role of the intellectual property sector.

The WIPO sent its experts to Vietnam to help the country make the Law on Intellectual Property in 2005. It also organised several workshops in Vietnam to help raise the capacity of Vietnam ’s intellectual property system.

The organisation also invited Vietnam to participate in meeting sessions of the the General Assembly of the WIPO, international conferences and training courses in the field.

At the 51 st session of the General Assembly of the organisation in Geneva in 2013, Vietnam was elected for the first time to the Programme and Budget Committee of the WIPO for the 2013-2015 term. It has also been re-elected to the WIPO Coordination Committee for the 2013-2015 term.

Vietnam is now the member of many international treaties on copyright and related rights that the WIPO manages, such as the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works and the Geneva Convention for the Protection of Producers of Phonograms Against Unauthorised Duplication of their Phonograms.-VNA