WASHINGTON – Nations making up roughly half the world’s trade achieved consensus this month on almost all the major issues surrounding an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

The agreement will be finalized pending resolution of certain unidentified but “small” issues, participants say, according to published reports.

In discussions concluded this month, consensus was attained on “nearly all substantive issues” covered, the reports said. The current ACTA text is available for public review at www.strtrade.com/wti/2010/october/07/acta_text.pdf.

ACTA aims to establish an international framework to help countries to combat the infringement of intellectual property rights, particularly counterfeiting and piracy, while maintaining legitimate trade.

The agreement includes civil, criminal and border enforcement measures, means for enforcement and best practices.

ACTA participants include the US, the European Union, Australia, Canada, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and Switzerland, which together make up about half of global trade.

China is said to have no interest in participating.