WIPO to help pottery exports

LAHORE: The origin-based products of Pakistan like Multan’s blue pottery can capture a huge export market by having (geographical indication) rights as per an international agreement of the World Intellectual Property Rights Organization (WIPO), also signed by Pakistan.

Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) General Manager Socrat Aman Rana, while addressing a consultative seminar shed light on the importance of the GI concept of WIPO as a tool for value-addition. He spoke about giving Pakistani products a market identity, especially with reference to the SME sector. He also highlighted SMEDA’s role in the SME sector’s development and support to all governmental agencies for achieving this goal.

The seminar was jointly organised by SMEDA, Punjab Small Industries Corporation (PSIC), IPO and Multan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI). The speakers gave awareness on protection of “Multan’s Blue Pottery as Geographical Indication of Pakistan.

PSIC MD Asim Javaid Hashmi said that PSIC was making concerted efforts to provide GI protection to the products, which are specifically made in various areas of Punjab like “khaddar” in Kamalia and blue pottery in Multan. PSIC was working in close collaboration with SMEDA, IPO and the industry stakeholders to complete the process of GI registration.

Hashmi said, as the registrant organisation of the origin-based products of Punjab, PSIC was compiling specifications and standards as per the WIPO requirement.

IPO-Pakistan Director General Shazia Adnan said that her organisation was committed to keep the local manufacturers and exporters abreast with the international intellectual property rights and procedures. She said that Pakistan was a signatory of the WIPO’s Trade Related Aspects of the Intellectual Property Rights (TRIP) agreement, under which the government of Pakistan had passed GI-Act 2020 to protect rights of the origin based-products of the country by following due procedures and standards.