On April 25, 2019, Minister Wang Zhigang of the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) met with Director-General Francis Gurry of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) who came to Beijing to attend the Thematic Forum on Silk Road of Innovation of the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

Minister Wang Zhigang thanked Director-General Francis Gurry for attending the thematic forum and appreciated the work which WIPO has done in the fields of protecting and advancing knowledge and technology progress. Minister Wang Zhigang looked back at the interim progress which the two sides have made since they signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation last year, including the consensus which MOST, WIPO and Dalian have reached on implementing the Technology and Innovation Support Center Pilot Project at Dalian High-Tech Zone. Minister Wang Zhigang also had an in-depth exchange of views with Director-General Francis Gurry on WIPO’s flagship reports including Global Innovation Index and Technology Trends – Artificial Intelligence and the secondees MOST will send to WIPO. Minister Wang Zhigang briefed Director-General Francis Gurry on the achievements which China‘s high-tech zones have accomplished over the past 30 years and invited WIPO to conduct in-depth research on the practices of high-tech zones in China. Minister Wang Zhigang also expressed the hope to strengthen cooperation between WIPO’s global innovation index and China’s innovation index system, and discussed data protection, legal supervision and ethics in the development of artificial intelligence.

Director-General Francis Gurry congratulated on the successful convening of the Thematic Forum on Silk Road of Innovation. He highly appraised China for its achievements in the field of science, technology and innovation, and fully affirmed the fruitful work of the two sides in implementing their Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation. Director-General Francis Gurry also expressed WIPO’s willingness to conduct research on the development of China‘s high-tech zones and further strengthen cooperation with MOST in the fields of information and data sharing, human resources training and capacity-building.

Director-General He Defang of the Department of Policy, Regulation and Innovation System, Director-General Xu Jing of the Department of Strategy and Planning, Deputy Director-General Chen Linhao of the Department of International Cooperation and Director-General Jia Jingdun of the Torch High Technology Industry Development Center of MOST, Deputy Director-General Wang Binying of WIPO, and Wang Yi, Senior Business Manager of WIPO Office in China were present at the meeting.