The Ministry of Foreign Affair Foreign Trade, Commerce and Information Technology will be collaborating with the Commerce and Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) to host a workshop on Geographical Indications (GI), on Thursday and Friday this week.
A release from the Ministry says the CARIFORUM-EC Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) signed on 15th October, 2008 between fifteen (15) CARIFORUM Member States and twenty-seven (27) EC Member States seeks to facilitate CARIFORUM ‘s identification and promotion of products that might benefit from GI.
The objectives of the workshop are to: build the capacity of the stakeholders on GI; identify the technical assistance needs of the stakeholders; and assist in developing and drafting a GI Product Specification.
The development of GI would enable Vincentian producers to identify the distinctive qualities of their products, possibly to justify higher prices and to protect their special characteristics from exploitation by producers of competing products.
The workshop opens at 9:00 am on Thursday at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Conference Room.
