February 19, 2002	Tuesday	Zilhaj 6, 1422

KARACHI, Feb 18: The government is considering various options with regard to jurisdiction and applicable laws in e-commerce, matters pertaining to cyber crimes and strengthening and enforcement of laws pertaining to intellectual property rights, to remove impediments to foreign direct investment.

This was spelt out by the federal minister for Law, Justice, and Human Rights, Barrister Shahida Jameel, during an interactive discussion on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and Copyrights on the second day of a two- day ICC regional foreign direct investment conference on Monday.

In view of concerns expressed at the delayed court proceedings, she also said that the possibility of separate IPR courts could be considered by the government.

The minister said improved policing was needed to make enforcement of laws more effective.

She said the government has decided to streamline the process of decision making and emphasized the need for an understanding of the local market by the MNCs in terms of consumer purchasing power. She also stressed that pricing strategies should be in line with the consumer’s purchasing power, saying this will help to cut on pricing.

Most of the participants representing multinationals were apprehensive at the proliferation of piracy in the country which, they said, was keeping investors away.

“It is illogical to tell the world to come and invest when you don’t protect their investment( by enforcing copyright laws and being aggressive matters pertaining to intellectual property),” said a Gulf-based participant who felt that enforcement of laws pertaining to these crimes was lacking.

Some of the speakers also had the impression that Karachi is the largest centre of pirated CDs, and held that by not protecting these rights the country was also facing brain drain.

According to statistics presented in the session, Pakistan, where piracy was estimated at 83 per cent, was loosing about 31 million dollars worth of software annually.

Barrister Shahida Jameel, who presided over the session, referred to the impediments created by nationalization of national institutions in the 1970s, owing to which the banking and insurance sectors and education, the entire legal framework was amended accordingly.

An isolationist trend became visible throughout the various legal frameworks. Rather than regulations, regulatory authorities with arbitrary powers and immune from liability were inducted into most sectors of economic activity.

The minister also referred to the domains of various ministries in the formulation of law, rules and regulations, which made the decision-making process cumbersome and painstaking.

Referring to steps taken by the present government for streamlining the procedure, she pointed at the Amendments to Copyrights Ordinance, 1962, to make it compatible with the TRIPS Agreement (1994) (Ord. 2000); Trademark Ordinance 2001; Patents Ordinance 2000;