Bellanova: “We look forward to the rapid implementation of the EU-China Agreement on the protection of Geographical Indications. Necessary step forward on the Memorandum for the export of pears "
"China is a destination of great interest for Italian agri-food and we are determined to work with you to allow access to the Chinese market for more and more Italian products of excellence".
Thus Minister Teresa Bellanova opening the bilateral meeting with the Ambassador of the People's Republic of China Li Junhua, held in the presence of the Ministry of Agricultural Policies, and ended a few minutes ago.
“The signing, last August, of the Addendum to the Protocol for the export of kiwifruit”, continued Bellanova, “represented a small important step on this path. We now hope that the negotiations on the Memorandum for the export of pears can be carried out more quickly, with the finalization of an initial text and a proposal that defines the criteria for carrying out the videoconference inspections, necessary to overcome the obstacles of this period of crisis and travel restriction. It is important to ensure that the next bilateral meetings are aimed at achieving concrete and operational results ”.
In the cordial confrontation that lasted about an hour, also the EU-China Agreement on Geographical Indications, concluded last November after 10 years of negotiations with the identification, for each party, of 100 Geographical Indications to be assigned a high level of protection, ensuring protection from imitations or unfair practices.
That Agreement, underlined Minister Bellanova, “represents a success for both parties. Convinced of the opportunity for the development of our rural areas, we are confident in its rapid entry into force, certain that our countries will be able to take advantage of this opportunity to present and enhance the best of their production on their respective markets. We thus offer our consumers guarantees on the origin and quality of products, protecting them from the numerous counterfeits that are rampant in the agro-food market. But the success of each agreement ”, Bellanova wanted to highlight,“ lies in its implementation. In this sense, the protection of geographical indications must concern the real market and above all the increasingly flourishing online market ”.
In this regard, Bellanova recalled the effective collaboration between Alibaba and the Inspectorate for quality and the repression of ICQRF fraud, now in its fourth year of operation, also important for the Italian involvement in the Advisory Committee on intellectual property launched by the commercial platform. Chinese for small and medium-sized enterprises. "Italy is the only European country that has already registered all 26 PDO / PGI products included in the agreement on the platforms of the Alibaba group", recalled the Minister, "And for us it is essential that the protection of our products includes all levels of web "domains".