Hanoi (VNA) - Counterfeiting and violations of intellectual property rights(IPR) were still rampant, with the perpetrators operating outside andwithin the country employing advanced technologies and runningsophisticated schemes, Hoang Anh Duong, Deputy General Director of the VietnamDirectorate of Market Surveillance, said at a forum in Hanoi on November 26.

In addition, fraud,unfair competition, counterfeiting and violations of IPRs had gone almostunchecked on the internet due to a lack of legal mechanisms to regulate onlinetrading.

The country’s marketwatch force, under the management of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, hadconducted more than 140,000 investigations, among which more than 82,000resulted in violations.

Ithad confiscated goods with a total value of150 billion VND (6.5 millionUSD), and provided support for the police to prosecute 107 cases.

During the last tenmonths, the forces had handled more than 6,500 cases related tocounterfeiting and IPR violations alone.

A major hurdle wasdifficulty tracking the origin of goods, according to the deputy head.

Contrabandis typically smuggled into the country through hidden trails along itsthousands-of-kilometres long borders its shares with Cambodia, China andLaos, and had proven to be extremely difficult to stop.

Once brought in, theyare often mixed with other goods making it tricky market watch officialsto detect.  Even when they are found, it’s nearly impossible to tracktheir origin as information labels are fabricated.

Duong called for acomplete revamp of the country’s market force's approach tofighting fraud and counterfeiting and the development of directcommunication channels between consumers and market watch forces for the earlydetection of contraband and fraudulent activities.  

He also stressed theneed to advise the public to only purchase from online platforms thathad been licensed and registered by trade authorities.

A lot of progresshad been made in Vietnam’s efforts to combat counterfeiting and violationsof IPRs, said Phan Ngan Son, Deputy Director of the IPR Department under theMinistry of Science and Technology.

However, more resourcesmust be committed to improving the quality of the country’s market watchforce with additional training and modern equipment, especially in the field ofIPR.

Nguyen Ngoc TuyetTrinh, PR Director of L'Oréal Vietnam, said perpetrators moving their illicittrade online had made market watch officials’ jobs even more difficult ascontraband was often stored in residential homes, making it nearly impossibleto find.

According to L'Oréal Vietnam,counterfeit and smuggled cosmetic products accounted for more than 60 percentof sales of L'Oréal products through both online and offline channels.

The French cosmeticscompany has made numerous pleas to the Government to clamp down on sales offake cosmetics and to implement legal mechanisms to protect enterprises’ IPRsonline.

The Office of theUnited States Trade Representative (USTR) placed Vietnam on its watch list forinfringements of IPRs in 2019./.