 Delegates from WIPO's 185 member states will meet in the Moroccan city of Marrakech from June 16 to 30, 2013, to conclude a treaty that promises to improve access to published works for the many visually impaired and people with print disabilities around the world. A decision to convene a diplomatic conference, the final phase of treaty negotiations, was taken by member states on December 18, 2012, during an extraordinary session of the WIPO General Assembly. Delegations agreed that while more work was needed, the current status of negotiations was mature enough to convene a diplomatic conference in June 2013. The decision was welcomed by all stakeholders. I'm convinced that we have indeed reached a very good result that will enable us to reach our normative objective and that is the conclusion and adoption of the very important treaty on VIPs. I'm still digesting the information, but very pleased that we've got to this point in our work towards a treaty. This is an extremely important decision that has been taken by the member states to convene a diplomatic conference to conclude a new treaty that will create a legal framework which will make it a lot easier for visually impaired persons, the blind and the print disabled, to have access to all of the works that are published in the world and to have access in formats that enable them to be able to consume the works. Some 300 million blind, visually impaired people and persons with print disabilities around the world stand to benefit from a more flexible copyright regime adapted to current technological realities. Individuals with reading impairment often need to convert information into braille, large print, audio, electronic and other formats using assistive technologies. Only a very small percentage of published books around the world are available in formats accessible to the visually impaired. While some countries have domestic legislation that grants limitations and exceptions for use of copyrighted works by visually impaired and people with print disabilities, there is a legal vacuum at the international level which a future treaty would fill. With this treaty, the organisations that make most of those books available, organisations like mine, Royal National Institute of Blind People in the UK, we will be able to send our collections of accessible books to other countries where they have even less in the way of resources so that blind people in those countries can read those books. At the moment copyright law doesn't allow that to happen with the treaty that would be able to happen and that will make a significant difference in the number of books that people can read. Delegates were grateful to the Moroccan government for its offer to host a diplomatic conference. Morocco is the first ever Arab country to host a high level WIPO negotiation. In France, there is, as we say, a single protector of Morocco that makes everything that happens, everything that holds Morocco, successful and successful as a result of which people are waiting.