By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON, April 30 (Reuters) - The U.S. Trade Representative's office identified Vietnam as a top concern or "Priority Foreign Country" on intellectual property rights in an annual report released on Thursday, raising the prospect of a new trade probe into the Asian nation.
• The identification is reserved by statute for countries with "the most egregious IP-related acts, policies, and practices with the greatest adverse impact on relevant U.S. products," according to the USTR office.
• The identification also means that the listed country had not been entering into "good faith negotiations or making significant progress in negotiations" to provide adequate and effective IP rights protection, the USTR office said.
• Vietnam's identification in that list marked the first time in 13 years that a country was listed in that category.
• The USTR office said it will decide within 30 days whether to initiate an investigation under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.
• If USTR initiates an investigation, it said it will request consultations with Vietnam and seek "to resolve the issues that led to Vietnam's identification as a PFC."
• USTR removed Argentina and Mexico from its "priority watch list," citing improvements by those countries on intellectual property rights.
• Mexico welcomed its exit from the list, which comes as Mexico, the U.S. and Canada are engaging in a joint review of their trilateral trade pact this year.
• The "priority watch list" countries, which are just below the "Priority Foreign Country" designation, included China, India, Chile, Indonesia, Russia and Venezuela.
• Another 19 trading partners were noted in the separate "watch list" category to which the European Union was added in the latest report.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh, Doina Chiacu, Ismail Shakil and Brendan O'Boyle; Editing by Caitlin Webber and Nia Williams)
