Posted: Thursday, December 3rd, 2015. 1:27 PM CST
By Chrisbert Garcia: A Geographical Indication (GI) Validation workshop has been underway at the Radisson Fort George Hotel from 8:30 this morning, and is being hosted by the Directorate General for Foreign Trade to provide opportunity for consultations on a draft GI Bill.
A press release issued yesterday stated that this bill is the first step towards developing better protection for Belizean GIs, such as Cacao, for which the preparatory work is being done with the assistance of Beltraide, as well as other Belizean goods, especially from the agricultural sector.
The significance of GIs are to identify quality, reputation of other characteristics of goods that are essentially attributable to the place of their origin and Belize is currently the only CARICOM country to protect GIs as certification marks under its Trademark Act (Chapter 257).
The workshop concluded at 1:00 p.m.