HAIKOU, September 16. /TASS/. Sanya's high-tech companies this week set up an association for the protection of foreign intellectual property rights in Yazhouwan Science City, reported the Sanya Daily. 

According to the newspaper, this organization mainly aims to contribute to the effective settlement of disputes and conflicts, to raise the awareness of Chinese companies on how to resolve issues related to licenses and developments when interacting with companies and individuals abroad. The association will also help resolve problems with the transfer of rights to patents, inventions and technologies that may arise during mergers, exhibitions and fairs.

"The creation of the association at Yazhouwan will help the rapidly developing Hainan's free trade port to adapt to new, increasingly complex forms of intellectual property protection on the international market," said Liu Golyan, WIPO China Consultant, Former Head of International Cooperation State Department of Intellectual Property of China.

According to the newspaper, the organizing committee of the association consists of highly professional specialists from China, who previously worked in the country's leading universities or in such big industrial organizations as British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, Chinese automaker Foton, international leader in seed production, Swiss Syngenta Group. The new association includes 21 commercial organizations so far, but in the future their number is expected to grow steadily.

Sanya is one of the key centers of Hainan's economic development, it gets a significant part of its income from the service sector. The island's administration plans to transform the city into a leading financial and economic center with advanced infrastructure with the headquarters of large Chinese and foreign companies. This large town, also known worldwide as a first-class resort, is transforming yearly, drawing more and more investors to the province.