"Geographical Indications (GI) is becoming a valuable commercial property, significantly contributing to the economic and social development at both of the national and regional levels. Therefore, it is essential to protect this property. However, it is necessary to combine both the protection and market promotion activities as well as the implementation of control measures for this property, for exploitation and commercialisation of instruction to bring high economic efficiency and sustainability.” This is recommended by Le Ngoc Lam, Deputy Director General of the National Office of Intellectual Property (NOIP) under the Ministry of Science and Technology at the workshop on Geographical Indications and IP related commitments of the Vietnam- EU Free Trade Agreement.
The workshop is organised by the NOIP in collaboration with the Trade and Investment Policy Assistance Project under the EU - MUTRAP project.
As noted by Mr Lam, Vietnam is a country with many quality products characterised by regions and localities; more GI products will help build confidence among customers. However, the awareness and effective management of the protected properties is being challenged; particularly, it lacks product promotion activities and organ systems, and organisations to control the GI, especially quality control issues associated with the protection of the GI products. Therefore, to bring high commercial value for manufacturers and provide the GI products to the customers are still limited.
From the view of the NOIP, the local authorities have implemented many measures to support the GI products to grasp the remarkable results. But the shortcomings of the exploitation and control of the GI products need to be solved in the near future. Meanwhile, in the EU, there are a lot of famous GI that are developed efficiently because the EU is running a good system of registration, protection and control for such products.” The experience of the EU will be the lesson for the authorities as well as organisations and individuals that have the GI products protected in Vietnam,” commented Lam.
According to Luu Duc Thanh, Head of the Office's GI and International Brand Division, all EU agreements signed with other countries like Singapore and South Korea include the content on the GI so Vietnam is not exceptional. The EU wants to penetrate into the Asian market through addressing the GI in Vietnam.
For Vietnam, although there are many quality local products, at present Vietnam’s Phu Quoc fish sauce is the only one certified by the GI in EU, accounting for a modest proportion of among 7,000 GI-certified products in this vast market. This is also a problem facing Vietnam that should be improved in the near future. During the EVFTA negotiation process, the EU proposed a list of 171 GI products, of which 169 products are approved by Vietnam. Similarly, Vietnam proposed 41 GI products and the EU approved 39 products, in effect once the EVFTA is passed. "One of the core issues is how the GI products are effectively controlled. The goals are to ensure quality at least as original products that are marked as being protected. Therefore, it is necessary to build up a GI control and management system," stressed Mr Thanh.
Mr Dao Duc Huan, Director of Centre for Rural Development, Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development, said in the past 15 years, Vietnam has focused on building and developing the GI system as a tool in the protection of farm products in the context of deeper economic integration. As of May 30, 2016, Vietnam had 43 GI products protected in 32 provinces and cities across the country.
But now the GI is facing challenges because some producers do not fully understand the protection of the products. This leads to less positive cooperation and unfair competition, negatively affecting the formation of featured local products. Besides, the management of GI system in Vietnam is facing many difficulties due to the lack of a legal basis in the control of the GI products; lack of resources to implement; and under-represented capacity and governance role of organisations; Besides, the needs of using the GI of individuals and enterprises are limited so the GI have not become popular commercial signs.
According Dr Delphine Marie Vivien from CIRAD (A French research centre working with developing countries to tackle international agricultural and development issues), with many globally branded agricultural products such as dragon fruit, coffee, and tea, Vietnam is fully capable of exploiting to benefit of registration with the GI system. The most essential issue is that Vietnam needs a global management vision to control the GI process, while paying attention to the balance between the role of the association of product manufacturers to bring the GI to the community.
Given the recommendation of Ms Jana Herceg, Deputy Head of Economics & Trade Section, Delegation of the European Union to Vietnam, to access difficult markets like the EU, Vietnam should learn from the experiences of European countries in building systems to further improve the value of exports to this large market.
My Chau
Vietnamese
