ANTI-COUNTERFEIT: AN ARDULOUS TASK IN CHINA

Last year saw a worrying increase in the number of both counterfeiting cases handled and criminals punished. Altogether 12,260 criminals involved in counterfeiting were prosecuted, 1636 of which were sentenced to from five years’ imprisonment up to death penalty. Among all the cases, 8272 were related to counterfeiting of money, securities, financial documents and special invoices, increasing by 64% over 1998 and 206 were in relation to patent and trademark counterfeiting and false advertisements, increasing by 26% with 275 criminals punished.

Similarly, a recent investigation into 283 enterprises in China conducted by the State Bureau of Quality Technical Supervision (State BQTS) also showed such a pressing situation. Among all the enterprises investigated, 182 have to annually spend 240 million RMB Yuan (US$ 29 million) and over 1600 employees in striking counterfeit; and 160 of them suffered from counterfeiting activities, with a total damage of 9.6 billion RMB Yuan, accounting for 11.1% of their annual gross output value.

An official from the State BQTS exemplified to summarize the worrying trends in counterfeiting world as follows.

First, the sort and number of counterfeit products are still growing with huge value----last year, only from one counterfeiting liar in Shanxi Province, the Taiyuan BQTS seized over 140 thousands of cartons of counterfeit cigarettes valued at 11 million RMB Yuan (US$ 1.4 million).

Second, some counterfeiting activities are conducted collectively within local areas. For instance, as many as 100 small fertilizer factories in Haizhou District of Lianyungang City in east Jiangsu Province were ever involved in counterfeiting fertilizers of poor quality and they even made an annual production of 80,000 to 100,000 tons.

Third, counterfeit products always contain serious safety problems----because those products likely falling prey to counterfeiters are concentrated in such fields as agricultural tools and chemicals, building materials, gas utensils, daily electric appliances, foods, all of which are vital to human health.

Lastly, counterfeiters are becoming more and more foxy and rampant, besetting the anti-counterfeiting work with much difficulty. An incomplete statistic revealed over 30 cases last year in which the law enforcement actions were resisted. The most serious event happened in Heilongjiang Province where two officials from the BQTS were killed by counterfeiters.

In order to effectively throttle the above pressing trends of counterfeiting, the BQTS at all levels in China reportedly focus their strength on the so-called “Four Mains”. They are: 1) ten main products in face of serious counterfeiting, such as agricultural chemicals and tools, domestic gas utensils, motorcycles and auto parts, cigarettes; 2) ten main wholesale markets with wide coverage and large quantity of counterfeit goods, for instance, Yiwu Small Commodity Market of Zhejiang Province, Guangzhou Xinfa Market and South Santiao Wholesale Market of Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province; 3) 30 main areas infested with counterfeiting activities such as Chaoyang District of Guangdong Province, Yunxiao District of Fujian Province and Xushui District of Hebei Province; 4) a batch of main cases each involving serious damages as well as counterfeit products at a minimum value of 500,000 RMB Yuan (around US$ 60,000).