INDONESIA NOT SURPRISED BY 301 DOWNGRADE

UNCLAS JAKARTA 000766 SINGAPORE FOR SUSAN BAKER SIPDIS SENSITIVE DEPT PASS TO USTR DEPT FOR EAP/MTS, EEB/TPP, EEB/IPE USTR FOR BWEISEL USTR FOR KELHERS AND RBAE E.O. 12598: N/A TAGS: KIPR EINV ETRD ECON ID SUBJECT: INDONESIA NOT SURPRISED BY 301 DOWNGRADE ¶1. (SBU) On April 29th, Post informed Halida Miljani, Special Assistant to the Minister of International Trade, that Indonesia was downgraded on the Special 301 intellectual property rights (IPR) Watch List to Priority Watch List status for 2009. Miljani was not surprised and responded that she already warned Minister of Trade Pangestu that a downgrade of Indonesia's status was likely. Miljani hopes to engage on IPR issues further during the bilateral Trade and Investment Framework Agreement talks scheduled in Washington in mid-May. ¶2. (SBU) We conveyed our concerns that Indonesia has made only limited improvements overall in the enforcement and protection of IPR since its upgrade to the Watch List in November 2006. We added, however, that we are encouraged by some of the corrective steps the Indonesian government has initiated in recent weeks. For example, the Ministry of Tourism recently suspended Decree PM.55/PW.204/MKP/2008 which required that all theatrical movie prints exhibited in Indonesia be processed locally. Also, Ministry of Health officials recently convened an open forum with government and industry stakeholders to discuss possible changes to Decree 1010/MENKES/PER/XI/2008, which requires pharmaceutical companies to manufacture drugs domestically as a prerequisite for the licensing and sale of their products. Lastly, GOI officials have expressed a renewed willingness to follow-through on codifying Indonesia's commitments on data exclusivity in the country's legal framework. Health issues SDecree HUME