Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh Li Jiming discussed the issue during his separate meetings with Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen and outgoing Foreign Secretary M Shahidul Haque on Thursday, the official told UNB.
The WIPO election, a self-funding agency of the United Nations with 192 member states, is scheduled to take place on March 5 and 6 next year.
Asked about Bangladesh’s position, another official told UNB Bangladesh is always supportive of China in in terms of international elections. However, it could not be confirmed whether Bangladesh has extended support to China or not.
On December 16, WIPO Director General Francis Gurry met Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque to discuss WIPO's capacity-building support to Bangladesh and the importance of intellectual property in national innovation strategies.
Francis Gurry has been leading WIPO as Director General since October 1, 2008. He was reappointed in May 2014 for a second six-year term, which runs through September 2020.
WIPO is the global forum for intellectual property (IP) services, policy, information and cooperation.
On September 30, the government of every State member of WIPO was invited, if it so desires, to propose the name of one of its nationals as candidate for nomination by the WIPO Coordination Committee.
China nominated a candidate to head the WIPO signaling its desire to more actively shape the international system for defining intellectual property rights.
China formally proposed Wang Binying, the current deputy director general at WIPO, to succeed the agency’s Australian director-general Francis Gurry.
Wang Binying has worked in various roles since joining the International Bureau of WIPO in April 1992. She previously held roles as a senior program officer in the Bureau for Development Cooperation for Asia and the Pacific at WIPO.
Other candidates for the WIPO DG post are Daren Tang (Singapore), Marco Aleman (Colombia), Kenichiro Natsume (Japan), Dr Edward Kwakwa (Ghana), Saule Tlevlessova (Kazakhstan), Marco Aleman (Colombia), Dr Dámaso Pardo (Argentina) and Prof Adebambo Adewopo (Nigeria).