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Symposium on geographic indications held in Chongqing
By By Hu Yongqi in Chongqing (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2009-11-30 19:37
About 120 agricultural products with approved "geographic indications" were on display at a symposium in Chongqing Monday sponsored by the World Intellectual Property Organization （WIPO).
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 WIPO Asia-Pacific Symposium on Geographic Indications and Their Impact on the Rural Economic Development is held in southwest China's Chongqing municipality November 30, 2009. |
Geographic indications are marks signifying that a product is from a specific place. This can help prove that some products, which are commonly associated with locations, such as French wine, are authentic.
China has many varieties of agricultural products, and the protection of geographic indications is important for the rural economy, Fu Shangjian, vice minister of State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC), said.
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 Foreign experts look at saki velvet at the WIPO Asia-Pacific Symposium on Geographic Indications and Their Impact on the Rural Economic Development in southwest China's Chongqing municipality November 30, 2009. |
SAIC has accepted and certified 7.06 million geographic indications since they were first allowed in China in March 1995. Approximately 120 kinds of agricultural products, such as Jiaodong cabbage from Shandong province, were displayed at the symposium.
Representatives from 16 countries attended the symposium. Marcus Hopperger, the WIPO official in charge of geographic indications, said the WIPO has a long history of cooperation with SAIC in sharing experience and enhancing exchanges with each other, and that they would continue to cooperate in the future.
"Chinese products are really amazing, but they need to do more promotion to go to the international market later on," he told China Daily.
