INTA 2014: Counterfeiters use Hong Kong as China's exit door
Counterfeiters are becoming “clever, efficient and flexible” by changing their shipping routes, while Hong Kong is fast turning into China's “exit door” for counterfeit exports, customs officials have said.
Giving an update on counterfeit transportation in Asia, officials at the World Customs Organization (WCO) and Hong Kong Customs Authority (HKCA) said Hong Kong has seen a huge increase in items shipped out.
According to Albert Ho, assistant commissioner at HKCA, there was a 50 percent increase in goods shipped to the US and a 20 percent increase to the EU in the last year.
“This is becoming an international issue,” he told INTA's annual meeting in Hong Kong, adding that counterfeiters were increasingly using the most efficient and busiest port to try and export their products.
Jessica Chan, counsel for fashion label Burberry's Asia Pacific branch, said Hong Kong was the world's fourth busiest port, with 22m containers passing through it last year.
“This is compared to just 3m in the busiest ports in the US,” Chan said, adding that the “growing problem of transshipment” was making it harder to detect when counterfeits were present.
Transshipment is a system where imports are moved from one vessel to another before being shipped out to a different location.
Junko Yamamoto, technical attaché at the WCO, spoke of how recent operations it had carried out on transshipment and exports revealed counterfeiters were changing their shipping routes.
“Most counterfeits still import via sea, as this is the most cost-effective way, but they are becoming more efficient by changing their routes,” Yamamoto said.
The changes include altering the starting port for items being shipped to South America from Ningbo, in the north of China, to Shanghai, and altering their final destination to enter the continent via Mexico and Panama.
“These are subtle changes but implemented in order to circumvent customs,” Yamamoto said.
Yamamoto added that the WCO was implementing measures to tackle the problem, including implementing an identification system to detect counterfeit products on the spot and by increasing its workforce.
The INTA meeting runs from May 10-14.
