Bulgaria favours greater protection of geographical indications under the Convention on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. The country's position was voiced by Economy Minister Nikolai Vassilev and his deputy Lyubka Kachakova at the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which was held in Doha, Qatar, from November 9 to 13.

Switzerland, India and Bulgaria were the first three countries to express their support for an expansion of the additional protection of geographical indications. These relate to products which are named after specific regions in the world. So far, only the geographical indications of wine and alcohol qualify for special protection.

At the conference, Vassilev emphasized Bulgaria's policy on agricultural subsidies. "Bulgaria does not have the resources for a large-scale subsidizing of the sector with the exception of the tobacco-growing industry," he said. As an EU applicant, however, Bulgaria recognizes the need to adopt the single agricultural policy of the European Union upon accession. This means Bulgaria will support the pro-subsidy position of the EU within the framework of multilateral negotiations, said the Bulgarian delegation.

Most European Union countries might accept stronger language calling for reductions in agricultural export subsidies if trade ministers will agree to consider issues relating to protection of the environment, officials said, according to the Associated Press. They suggested developing countries are less prepared to budge on environmental protection, but might accept EU proposals to start negotiations on the rules relating to investment and competition policy in return for the stronger text denouncing export subsidies.

Within the WTO, developing countries are entitled to a number of privileges despite the fact they have good economic prospects. Bulgaria believes the creation of special rules for separate categories of countries and the awarding of special rights and privileges should be done based on objective criteria and economic indicators. One of them could be GDP per capita, the delegation stressed at the conference.

A development, which could prove useful to Bulgaria, was that trade negotiators agreed to a deal in principle on how to reconcile protection for the patents of rich countries on medicines with the demand of poor countries to access cheap drugs to tackle epidemics such as AIDS.

The deal on patents, worked out by negotiators, must still be endorsed by the full WTO membership, but an inside source quoted by the Reuters news agency said he was confident it would go through as it stood. Diplomats said they hoped a breakthrough on patent protection would help unlock a broader deal and enable the calling of a new round of talks on international trade within the WTO.

Bulgaria would also like to see an agreement on a new round of multilateral trade negotiations reached within this Ministerial Conference. The country, together with the European Union, the CEFTA countries, and other states, have consistently supported the start of a new round of multilateral trade negotiations of the broadest possible scope.

In Doha, the Bulgarian delegation met officially with representatives of India, Switzerland, Japan, Israel, Austria, Turkey, Russia, Korea and Cuba. Meetings with representatives of the Netherlands, China, Germany and Hungary were forthcoming as were informal meetings with representatives of Croatia, Romania, Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The issues that were discussed included bilateral relations, trade, and investment, said the Economy Ministry in a press release on Tuesday.