The country's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries will send experts to eight Southeast Asian countries, such as Thailand and Indonesia, to help devise laws and review processes so that they can join the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants, or UPOV.
Japan, China and South Korea have agreed to cooperate with ASEAN to develop by 2027 a system for the bloc that meets global standards for protecting the rights of plant breeders. The three East Asian countries are among the 75 nations and jurisdictions in UPOV, whose members provide robust protections against unauthorized cultivation or sales.
The Ministry of Agriculture estimates that Japanese strawberry farmers lose up to 4.4 billion yen ($39.1 million) per year from lost opportunities due to South Korean exports.
Source: asia.nikkei.com