HONGKONG - An agreement on intellectual property rights (IPR) that may be crafted under the World Trade Organization (WTO) should tackle biopiracy to allow developing countries like the Philippines to benefit from the use of its indigenous resources by multinational corporations.

Environment Undersecretary Demetrio Ignacio yesterday said the Philippines in particular is keen on the inclusion in a Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement of a benefit-sharing scheme as well as a rule that will compel firms to disclose the origin of the materials used for the manufactured goods they will export.

"Right now, there are still no rules that will govern the use of a country's biological resources. That's why we're here in Hong Kong. We want to ensure that if any discussions will be initiated on this, we will be able to present our position," Mr. Ignacio told BusinessWorld in an interview.

The TRIPS agreement, however, is not part of the agenda of the ongoing 6th Ministerial Meeting of the WTO.

But while it is not part of the agenda, Mr. Ignacio said the Philippines and other countries belonging to the so-called Mega-Diverse Countries will continue to advocate for inclusion of biopiracy in talks for the TRIPS agreement.

Mr. Ignacio said developing countries want the WTO to adopt the Cartagena Protocol, an international agreement that laid down rules under which genetically modified (GM) crops and other GM organisms can be transferred from one country to another. The Protocol is a part of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity which entered into force in September 2003.

He noted many corporations go to biodiverse developing countries in the tropics such as the Philippines, patent organisms and compounds they find, then sell the resulting product for large profits without compensating the indigenous peoples or the country of origin.

The Environment official also said the Philippines is keen on including a provision in the TRIPS agreement for the patenting of traditional processes for producing certain goods, for instance, rattan weaving.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) earlier noted in a study that if royalty payments were made to developing countries and indigenous people for their plant varieties and local knowledge used by big multinational food and drug companies, those materials and technology providers would be getting $5.4 billion a year. UNDP also said that the value of Third World plant species to the pharmaceutical industry alone is estimated at more than $30 billion a year.