Le pouvoir des marques devrait favoriser les exportations des pays en développement (en)

ITC emphasized the power of branding exports of developing countries to increase their market competitiveness, as part of a two-day conference organized by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and Korean partner agencies in Seoul, Republic of Korea.

More than 200 people attended the conference on 25-26 April to learn about the contribution of branding and intellectual property (IP) to the development agenda. ITC was represented at the event by Jacky Charbonneau, Chief of the Enterprise Competitiveness section, who presented ITC’s joint work with WIPO on the branding of Zanzibar cloves. The presentation outlined the importance of branding as a way of creating more value at source in developing countries.

A central theme of the conference was helping developing countries move out of poverty by transitioning from unprocessed commodity exports to value-added, processed and branded products and services. The goal of branding and IP is not only to add value to the products, but to ensure the export value chain results in quality products and services that can be offered at competitive prices in international markets.

As part of the effort, trade promotion organizations need to work with IP offices to develop IP strategies, implement branding proposals and protect the brand assets of developing countries. WIPO is working on nine pilot programmes in Panama, Thailand and Uganda, under a Korean-funded initiative.

The event was organized by WIPO and the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency, Korean Intellectual Property Organization and Korea Invention Promotion Association.