ISLAMABAD, July 3: The government and the rice exporters are still unclear how to tackle issue of rights of basmati with India, which recently registered Pakistan's super basmati as Indian product in the world market that is estimated to cause $300 million loss to Pakistani exports.
Chairman Intellectual Property Rights Organisation (IPRO) of Pakistan Waseem Haqqie is of the view that the country's private sector would have to file a case in an Indian court against the Indian government for registering the super basmati rice as its own geographical indication (GI) under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).
"First, the Pakistani private sector must go to an Indian court and file a case against this move then our government would be there to support them financially," Mr Haqqie said.
"It is the government's responsibility to mobilise its foreign office and diplomatic channels and tackle the issue. The super basmati is a Pakistani GI and the government must defend it through speedy legislations or enactment of ordinance. We are here to support the government financially,” said H A Majid, chairman Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (Reap) adding: “How can we go to the Indian High Commission here and take up the issue.”
Mr Haqqie and Mr Majid were talking to newsmen on the sideline of the inaugural session of a two-day national workshop on GIs organised by the European Union (EU), IPRO Pakistan and World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) here on Monday. The WIPO experts are here to propose amendments to the draft of Pakistani GIs legislation to upgrade it as per the international requirements.
The Indian government had conducted 11-year research on the Pakistani super basmati rice and had now registered it as its own GI, which was unacceptable, he said adding that it was a Pakistani GI and the name of the rice was mentioned in Aaeen-e-Akbari and the poetry of Punjabi poet, Waris Shah. By all standard definitions, the type of rice belonged to Pakistan.
He said the Indian government registered the super basmati rice in haste on May 24, and spent Rs4 million on forming a basmati rice association overnight.
Earlier, speaking at the inaugural session of the conference, Mr Haqqie said the government through the IPRO would use print and electronic media to create awareness among all the stakeholders on the GIs, safeguard the interests of the local producers and achieve the goal of one village one product by safeguarding the traditional knowledge and local industry.
He said Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had realised the importance of GIs, that's why IPRO was constituted to take care of four areas including patents, trade marks, copy rights and GIs. He said more powers had been given to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and Customs department to eliminate the export of pirated optical disks from Pakistan and other such illegal products.
He said the major challenge before the IPRO was to restructure and refine the existing intellectual property structure in the country.
Chairman Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC) Dr M E Tasneem said that GIs had far-reaching implications for agricultural production, export, poverty reduction and sustainable development.
With the advent of biotechnology and genetic engineering, the structure of agriculture research had changed significantly leading to the assignment of intellectual property rights and increase in private sector investment in agriculture sector. "Many of the new high-yielding technologies are increasingly falling under the purview of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) such as Bt cotton, soybean, maize and canola," he added.
He said that the federal food and agriculture ministry had direct stake in the development and protection of new plant varieties and preservation of Pakistan's vast genetic resources. Besides, the country had a number of agriculture products with significant potential for exports and which could be protected as GIs.
Nuno Pires de Carvalho, the WIPO representative in Pakistan, and Yasin Tahir, director general, IPRO-Pakistan, also addressed the workshop.