Kamal Nath, Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, has stated that a Bilateral Agreement on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Cooperation between the Intellectual Property Offices of India and Singapore will be signed soon.
Singapore is India’s 5th largest merchandise trading partner and 4th largest merchandise export market and India’s exports to Singapore grew by 16% in the year 2007-08 compared to a growth of 42% in the imports from Singapore. Singapore also ranks 4th in terms of foreign direct investment in India during the period 1991-2008 with investments of US $ 4.7 billion.
The top five sectors attracting FDI inflows from Singapore into India are: petroleum & natural gas, mining, services sector, construction activities and power, whereas the top five sectors attracting technology transfer are: electrical equipments (including computer software & electronics), hotel & tourism, food processing industry, chemicals (other than fertilizers), and miscellaneous mechanical and engineering industries.
This is not the first instance of India entering into bilateral agreements with reference to IP. For example, the UK-India Joint Declaration of September 2004 committed India and the UK to
establish a UK-India Joint Economic and Trade Committee (JETCO).
The JETCO’s terms of reference were agreed at its inaugural meeting at the Ministerial level under the joint chairmanship of the Indian Minister of Commerce and Industry, Shri Kamal Nath, and the then British Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Ms. Patricia Hewitt in January 2005. At this meeting, it was inter alia decided to cooperate ‘to examine IPR issues under government leadership, with regard to the concerns of business from both countries, and adopt practical measures to address these’.
In addition to this, there exist:
These MoUs are under the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) of the Government of India.