Despite bruises from the Covid-19 pandemic, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN has kept its allure for investors, with its share of global foreign direct investments climbing from 12 percent in 2019 to nearly 14 percent in 2020.

In 2021, the economic bloc also bounced back robustly with FDI surging by 42 percent to $174 billion while the intra-ASEAN share of FDI in the region increased from 12 percent to 17 percent.

Such resilience is an outcome of the seeds the ASEAN has planted over the past few years to not only capture investments but also help them prosper, making them economic prosperity drivers as we envision ASEAN to be.

Today, as the world's fifth largest economy, ASEAN endeavors to sustain its steady recovery by adopting and implementing the ASEAN Investment Facilitation Framework and the ASEAN Comprehensive Recovery Framework, both in which the intellectual property or IP system plays a crucial role.

The ASEAN Working Group on IP Committee, as the lead implementer of the ASEAN IP Rights Action Plan 2016-2025, forms part of this landmark investment framework by striving to make IP creation, protection and commercialization an accessible goal to investors.

The ASEAN Comprehensive Recovery Framework, the bloc's main strategy for recovery, has also emphasized the AWGIPC's important work in building a more robust IP system in order for the region to maximize opportunities from a broader economic integration.

As chair of the AWGIPC, I am proud to see ASEAN members working together to achieve numerous breakthroughs that support business needs, including the development of unified IP platforms and databases.

Our ASEAN Patent Examination Cooperation or ASPEC, for example, is a patent work-sharing program among ASEAN IP Offices that reduces duplication, shares search and examination results, and produces quality reports helpful for inventors and investors alike.

The AWGIPC also paved the way for the ASEAN IP Portal, a platform that consolidates information on ASEAN IP systems and comparative IP-related data.

The portal also provides a singular channel for all IP marketplaces of ASEAN IP offices, enabling IP rights holders to put up their IPs for sale or licensing, and allowing investors to easily search for their next innovation investment.

The AWGIPC has also developed several databases critical for accessing the information on trademarks, patents, designs and geographical indications. In the near future, we hope to set up a portal to provide data and other legal and business information on the copyright-based industries in the ASEAN.

In keeping with the IP capacity needs of emerging knowledge-based industries in the region, the AWGIPC also launched the ASEAN IP Academy, which aims to elevate businesses' expertise in IP protection, creation, licensing and commercialization in the region.

As the AWGIPC helps accelerate the momentum of ASEAN's recovery, we would like to put particular emphasis on the recovery of MSMEs and under-resourced inventors and artists, the worst hit during the pandemic.

With this, the AWGIPC is working to establish an IP rights helpdesk for MSMEs to fill in gaps in their knowledge about the IP landscape and processes across ASEAN member states. In the months ahead, we hope to reach out to more MSMEs through our ASEAN IP Academy and the unwavering support of our international partners, such as the World Intellectual Property Organization.

To attain our vision of an efficient, inclusive and responsive IP regime in ASEAN, the AWGIPC is implementing the AIM strategy, which stands for Accelerate, Intensify and Modernize.

The AWGIPC is Accelerating the completion of deliverables, Intensifying coordination and collaboration to resolve bottlenecks to our goals, and Modernizing processes of IP Offices in ASEAN to increase the efficiency of their services.

With our AIM strategy, the AWGIPC hopes to complete 75 percent of the 57 deliverables under the ASEAN IP Rights Action Plan by March 2023 and, through supporting IP creation, protection and commercialization, the AWGIPC can help drive ASEAN build a brighter, more innovative and creative future for its people and the world.