"Strong protections for copyrights, trademarks and patents have proven a winning strategy for economic growth and development. We welcome two steps recently taken by Pakistan to improve intellectual property rights protection. First it has created an organization - the Pakistan Intellectual Property Rights Organization (PIPRO) - to consolidate authority over trademarks, patents, and copyrights in one government body. Second, Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) this week made nine arrests for copyright violations, seized over 100,000 pirated CDs and video and audio cassettes, and, most importantly, shut down six factories illegally producing optical media. Steps like these will no doubt help Pakistan attract greater investment in innovative industries."