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China-US hold

talks on copyright

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BEIJING: Chinese and U.S. officials have begun talks in Beijing on preventing piracy of intellectual property as part of a six-month review of China's progress towards halting such theft under a landmark Sino-U.S. accord.

The talks, which are also covering the delicate issue of wider market access for U.S. goods, began on Wednesday involving Assistant U.S. Trade Representative Lee Sands and officials of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, the China Daily said.

"So far the U.S. representatives have generally expressed satisfaction on China's efforts to improve its IPR (intellectual-property rights) protection and open its market wider," the China Daily quoted a ministry official as saying.

"The U.S. side said they appreciated China's work in such sectors as reducing import restrictions, increasing transparency on foreign trade administration and improving quarantines on agricultural products, animals and plants," he said.

China has scrambled in the past few days to list its achievements in its battle to combat theft of intellectual property with Sands in town.

Despite the landmark U.S.-China accord in February, in which China pledged to crush intellectual-property thieves, fake items from software, books and movies to fast-food shops and cars are still available in many cities, including Beijing.

Sands has declined to comment on his visit but told the Business Software Alliance, an anti-piracy consortium, that he was in Beijing mainly to listen to official progress reports.

Alliance Vice President Valerie Colbourn said China had made progress, but that software piracy was flourishing at a cost of $830 million a year in lost U.S. sales.

Beijing has adopted a series of measures to strengthen controls on piracy of compact discs and videos and to protect intellectual-property rights, Zhu Chuanbai, deputy-director of the Office of the Working Conference on Intellectual Property Rights under the State Council, China's cabinet, said during the past week.

Zhu cited a series of measures taken by China since early 1994 to try to curb such theft.

A State Council ruling issued in March following the Sino-U.S. accord, which stipulated a special enforcement period on intellectual-property laws from January 1, had been extended to August 31, Zhu said.-Reuter