October 2, 2010

1. The countries and region participating in the 11th round of negotiations on the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) held in Tokyo confirmed that they reached an Agreement in Principle today. Having proposed the idea of the ACTA and promoted the negotiation, Japan highly welcomes this Agreement in Principle.

2. The ACTA is an international legal framework to deal with counterfeiting and piracy proliferation, which undermines trade and global economic development, and is therefore expected to revitalize Japan’s industry and economy.

3. Japan will make every effort toward the ACTA’s early activation. Japan will also continue to expand efforts for worldwide protection of intellectual property rights via actions such as encouraging non-participants to accede to the ACTA.