Bernama.com (Malaysian National News Agency), 9 November, 2006

M'sia & India To Initiate Regional IPR Institute

By Yeong Hui Ling

BANGALORE, Nov 9 (Bernama) - Malaysia and India will initiate the establishment of an India-Asean Institute for Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) to build human resource capacities and training to serve the region.

The regional institute would also help protect IPR of products produced by both regions, Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology (Mosti), Datuk Seri Dr Jamaludin Jarjis, said.

He said this was agreed to at the bilateral meeting between Malaysia and India on Science & Technology (S&T) Cooperation held in conjunction with the 12th Technology Summit and Technology Platform in New Delhi this week.

"We are in the midst of discussions for the mechanism to set up the institute which will be located in Malaysia. We will roll it out as soon as possible."

"We need to share this with Minister of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Datuk Mohd Shafie Apdal as soon as we come back," Dr Jamaludin said when briefing reporters on the outcome of the meeting here Thursday.

He was here for a three-day visit to Bangalore, beginning Nov 7, among others, to promote the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) and launch the set up of the third representative office of the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC).

Both countries have also agreed to pursue the idea of harmonising the regulatory framework for Biopharmaceutical sector in the East Asia region, said Dr Jamaludin.

Having one regulatory framework would help countries in the region easily export each others' Biopharmaceutical products within the region.

Dr Jamaludin said the combined markets of Asean, India and China was already huge with a 3.3 billion population. "This needs to be tapped as it offers huge returns as well."

"Our tropical medicines will no longer need to be sent to the United States for testing as the products can only be sold between the huge populations," he said.

In the field of research & development (R&D), India and Malaysia have agreed to undertake collaborative R&D on a sharing basis in three areas -- Biotechnology, Information Technology and Space Technology.

Dr Jamaludin said research institutes of both countries would undertake joint market-driven R&D that lead to commercialisation.

Asked what has been learnt from India during the visits to Bangalore, Dr Jamaludin said that the authority "must have done something right somewhere here."

"If you look at its roads and airport, you may not think this is the Silicon Valley of India. You may get the very next flight to immediately fly back home.

"But, the selling point of Bangalore is the pool of high-skilled Indian human capital in information and communications technology (ICT)," he said.

Dr Jamaludin noted that two Indian giant ICT companies, Infosys and Satyam, have been approached and have agreed to train a number of young Malaysian talents.

Earlier on Tuesday, Nov 7, he had "one-on-one meetings" with Infosys, Satyam and Embassy Group.

As at Nov 2005, there are 1,584 IT companies in Bangalore, of which 622 were multinational companies (MNCs).

More than 200,000 people are employed in IT and business process outsourcing companies based in Bangalore, a capital city of Karnataka.

It is considered one of the Top Ten Techno Cities of the world.

Malaysia has also offered India connection to its early Tsunami warning system as part of the initiative of sharing information on natural disasters.

The eastern and southern coastal India was badly hit by the Tsunami last year. The cost of the Tsunami was estimated to be at US$1.6 billion on its mainland alone, excluding the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Meanwhile, Dr Jamaludin said MDeC will come out with the five-year masterplan in a year's time to set a target on how much foreign direct investments (FDIs) can be attracted to MSC Malaysia.

As of Oct 31, 2006, of the 1,634 MSC-status companies, 391 were foreign-owned, 1,203 local and 40 joint ventures.

-- BERNAMA