The First China-Central Asia Heads of Intellectual Property Office Meeting was held in Urumuqi, Xinjiang on July 24. Shen Changyu, Commissioner of the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) presided over the meeting, which was attended by CNIPA Deputy Commissioner Lu Pengqi, executives and representatives of the IP offices of the five Central Asian countries. Wang Binying, Deputy Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) was present as an observer.

At the meeting, profound discussions on China-Central Asia cooperation in IP were conducted, and the Joint Statement of the First China-Central Asia Heads of Intellectual Property Office Meeting was passed to affirm commitment to the vision and consensus of China and Central Asian countries to bolster mutual trust, strengthen mutual learning and promote the development of the participating countries' IP systems through pragmatic cooperation and exchanges. The signatory parties agreed on the establishment of the China-Central Asia Heads of Intellectual Property Office Meeting mechanism and were willing to strengthen cooperation in the fields including exchanges in IP strategy and IP laws & policies, IPR protection and law enforcement, promoting IP utilization, development of IP human resources, IP public services and raising IP awareness to drive the common economic prosperity in the region.

Shen said that in recent years, the CNIPA has carried out a series of efficient cooperation activities with Central Asian IP offices under the Belt and Road Intellectual Property Cooperation (BRIPC) mechnism and other multilateral/bilateral programs, effectively promoting mutual exchanges in economy and trade, science and technology and culture. The parties are expected to keep working together, fully implement the contents of the Joint Statement and continue to deepen pragmatic cooperation in the IP field in a bid to inject IP energy into jointly building an even closer China-Central Asia community with a shared future.

After the meeting, Shen held bilateral talks respectively with Rakhat Kerimbaeva, Director of the State Agency for Intellectual Property and Innovation under the Cabinet of Ministers of the Kyrgyz Republic, Mirzo Ismoilzoda, Director of the National Center for Patents and Information of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of the Republic of Tajikistan, Ata Annaniyazov, Head of the State Service for Intellectual Property of Ministry of Finance and Economy of Turkmenistan, Esemurat Kanyazov, Head of IP Office of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Uzbekistan and Sholpan Abdreyeva, Director of the Department for Intellectual Property Rights, Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Kazakhstan.