Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations

Geneva

STATEMENT BY INDIA
Delivered by Amb. Rajiv K. Chander, Permanent Representative of India to UN, Geneva - on the Agenda Item dealing with the decision on Opening of External Offices of WIPO at the 57th WIPO General Assembly, on 11 October 2017.

Thank you Mr. Chair for putting forward this draft decision.

India has always favored forward movement on the issue of establishment of EOs based on the Guiding Principles, that were adopted by consensus 2 years ago. Accordingly, India had submitted its proposal in February 2016 for a national office and made several presentations before the Member States.

As conveyed in our informal consultations, my delegation is supportive of the first part of the draft decision for opening an External Office in Colombia in the current biennium on account of the broad support it enjoys. However,we wish that  a clear road map to finalise the EOs for the biennium 2018/19, had been spelt out.

We believe that every effort should be made to arrive at a decision by consensus  by the 2018 WIPO GA. However, in case after 3 years of endeavor to reach consensus there is no forward movement then the proposals on the table should be decided by vote as per WIPO’s General Rules of Procedure.

A timely decision will also enable a substantive review to be carried out in 2021 as already mandated.