Director-general Puangrat Asavapisit yesterday said Washington would be urged to drop Thailand from its Priority Watch List. With cooperation from the US, the action plans will focus on improving IP-rights protection before the next annual status review.

The US Trade Representative (USTR) cited inadequate copyright protection for moving Thailand from its Watch List to its Priority Watch List. The USTR reviews the status of IP protection of its trading partners each year and classifies problem countries in four categories: Monitoring, Watch, Priority Watch and Priority Foreign Country, the last one being the most severe category and subject to trade sanctions.

Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont said the government would try to find out the reason for the downgrade. "We must discuss the matter and consider guidelines for preventing any effects on the Thai economy in the future."

The department will form a committee with other government agencies, including the National Police Office, the Public Relations Department and the Public Health Ministry, to chart suppression plans for IP violations.

The department is in the process of amending IP laws and will also take measures to tackle counterfeiting, including issuing quoted numbers for all CD manufacturing machines and stringently monitoring 11 red zones for IP violations, especially Panthip Plaza, MBK Centre and Tawanna Plaza.

Puangrat said the USTR had greatly disappointed the government, because it had not used the information provided by Thailand in its progress evaluation.

In a letter to the USTR earlier, the department said the government was seriously hunting down pirates and trying to enforce IP laws.

"Although the downgrade status will not directly affect trade figures, it will have a psychological impact on US importers and other foreign investors," she said.

The US Embassy on Tuesday insisted that the downgrade was not due primarily to Thailand's invoking of compulsory drug licensing and suspending of patent rights.

However, that was apparently the major concern for the US, Puangrat said.

The department reported 1,264 cases of IP infringement, with 519,291 illegal copies seized in the first two months of this year. Of these, 713 broke copyright law, 541 abused trademarks and the rest fell afoul of tape- and visual-products law.

Board of Trade deputy secretary-general Pornsilp Patcharintanakul said that although the downgrade would not immediately hurt trading, sooner or later Thailand might face difficulties in selling to the US, the Kingdom's largest export market.

The US may raise non-tariff barriers to obstruct Thai goods, such as quota restrictions and withdrawal of tax privileges in its midyear revision of its Generalised System of Preferences.

The Bank of Thailand and the Federation of Thai Industries will soon call an urgent meeting to come up with recommendations for the government in negotiating with the US on the issues at hand, he added.

Petchanet Pratruangkrai

The Nation