Crackdown on counterfeit goods urged

Statistics from the Market Management Department under Ministry of Industry and Trade show that in the first nine months of this year, nearly 8,000 cases of counterfeit goods and others infringing on intellectual property rights were detected, 1,000 higher than the same period last year.

The goods involved are mainly food, milk, cosmetics, clothes, electronic products and medicines.

Le The Bao, chairman of the Vietnam Association for Anti-Counterfeiting and Trade Mark Protection, said counterfeit goods are definitely low-quality. About 70 percent of them are sold in rural and upland areas.

Truong Quang Hoai Nam, head of the Market Management Department, said production of forged goods is usually divided into specific steps. These include importing materials, processing, assembling, packaging, stamping, distributing and trading.

Illegal production has existed across the nation, and it is difficult to track producers, he said.

Recent investigations also prove that fake products are also produced in China and then smuggled into Vietnam.

Experts agreed counterfeits are often sophisticated, and it is difficult for consumers, even smart ones, to differentiate them.

Relevant authorities need special equipment or help from representatives of the real manufacturers to detect them, he said.

Luu Bach Chien, head of a market-watch team in Hanoi, mentioned counterfeit Rinnai gas cookers, a famous Japanese trade name, as an example.

He said these counterfeit gas cookers are impossible to detect until the company’s representatives are invited to participate in inspections because the shape, colour and all other features are so similar.

Only when they are in use, do these goods reveal their poor quality, he said.

Nguyen Thanh Hong, an official from the Vietnam Intellectual Property Department, said famous products are more likely to be copied.

He said counterfeits negatively impact on market expansion and evade State taxes.

Worse, consumers’ health is often placed at high risk by counterfeit food, medicine, cosmetics and vehicle parts.

Meanwhile, anti-counterfeiting measures including stamps, market management and punishment, have been found insufficient to control the situation.

Bao said stamps guaranteeing products not counterfeit could also, themselves, be counterfeited.

Nam said fines were too low to stop such illegal activities. He pointed to the fact that there is a lack of co-ordination among agencies in managing and inspecting goods imported, produced and sold in the marketplace.

Bao and Nam said enterprises are often reluctant to inform authorities when their goods are forged because they are afraid of losing consumers.

Moreover, many consumers support counterfeits because they love quality goods but are not willing to pay a large sum of money for them.

It is imperative to define the punishments for producing and trading counterfeits, Nam said.

Consumer knowledge about their rights and responsibilities should also be improved, he added.

Hong said enterprises should register intellectual property rights for new products to prevent imitations.