Sri Lanka’s customs authority has asked right owners to help it stop counterfeit goods being imported into the country.
According to Sri Lanka Business Online Ashorf Samzudeen, deputy superintendent at Sri Lanka Customs’ Consumer Protection Unit, said the agency can fight counterfeits with the cooperation of right owners, law enforcement agencies and legal professionals.
The most commonly pirated and counterfeit goods that enter the country are clothes, spare parts for motor vehicles, cigarettes, electronic goods, and medicinal and pharmaceutical products including Viagra.
Although Sri Lanka customs officials have the power to intercept imported goods the authorities themselves cannot always identify whether a certain product is counterfeit or not.
“We are at the border control to stop importing counterfeit goods to Sri Lanka. But to identify a good as a counterfeit, there should be a right holder of that product,” Samzudeen said.
“They should tell us this is genuine or authentic and this is the counterfeit.”
Around 8% of annual customs seizures in Sri Lanka are of counterfeit items, the report added.