On August 14, the 2007 Summit of APEC Paperless Trading Capacity Building and IP Protection was held in Beijing. More than 200 representatives from China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The General Administration of Customs, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, the National Copyright Administration, the State Intellectual Property Office, the State Office of Intellectual Property Protection, and the governments, enterprises and academic circles from the 21 APEC economies attended the summit, including Juan Capunay, Deputy Executive Director of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Secretariat, and Chinese Vice Minister of Commerce Liao Xiaoqi.

 

Capunay noted that paperless trade is an important ingredient in boosting international trade. From 2002 to 2006, APEC members reduced their trading costs by 5 percent through using paperless trading technology. "Our new goal is to reduce their trading costs by 5 percent again in 2010."

 

Liao delivered a speech at the summit, saying that paperless trade is an effective way to realize trade liberalization and facilitation. Paperless trade is supported by modern technologies, especially the information technology, and its development needs IP support and protection. Owing to the different economic and social development levels, paperless trade development varies greatly in different APEC economies. For lack of an efficient mechanism for APEC economies to exchange technologies and share IP information, the promotion of overall paperless trading level of all APEC members is facing great challenges. Thus, it is very necessary to establish and improve the platform to share and protect technologies and knowledge related to paperless trade.

 

According to Liu Junsheng, Chairman of the APEC E-Commerce Business Alliance, with the rapid development of digital IT industry, the Internet greatly promoted the spread of knowledge and information and accelerated the economic and social progress. But the frequent Internet infringement, especially the hi-tech piracy seriously interrupted the normal spread of Internet knowledge and resources. In this sense, it is urgent to protect IPR on the Internet.

 

The summit was jointly sponsored by the APEC and the Ministry of Commerce of China and was held by APEC E-Commerce Business Alliance, aiming to discuss the important IP problems in paperless trading capacity building and put forward policies and development suggestions on the rational allocation of IP and other resources during the process of improving APEC paperless trading capacity. The summit is an important part of the Project of APEC Paperless Trading Capacity Building and Intellectual Property Protection, as well as the sole great APEC event held by Chinese Government in 2007.

2007-08-17

2007-08-17