A senior official said at a news conference in Beijing yesterday that counterfeit goods worth 100 million yuan (US$12 million) have so far been taken off shelves nationwide in a year-long campaign launched by authorities last November.

"The crackdown, initiated by the Ministry of Public Security last November, is targeted at slashing the number of fake products," said Xiang Xin, secretary-general of the Office of the National Working Group for Intellectual Property Rights Protection, and products seized include sporting goods, pharmaceuticals and auto parts.

She said 419 suspects involved have been arrested.

In the biggest case, a gang in east China's Zhejiang Province was caught with 650,000 boxes of fake Gillette products valued at 30 million yuan (US$3.5 million).

Last June, the Taizhou Industrial and Commercial Administration grew suspicious of a man, You Fushun, and had reason to believe he was involved with counterfeiting so reported him to local police.

The subsequent investigation found that You and several colleagues regularly made trips to Ningbo, a port city in Zhejiang, to transport fake razors to Yiwu, a commodity centre in the province.

By October 27, the bureau had raided a company which made fake razors in Ningbo, and searched a number of other places known to be frequented by You and his partners.

Police seized 50 boxes of the razors in Yiwu and caught You and another six suspects red-handed.

Following the case, the Ministry of Public Security launched a massive investigation throughout Zhejiang.

Other counterfeit products seized over the past five months include auto parts bearing Toyota, Nissan, Mitsubishi and Mazda brand names, fake Viagra, shoes with Adidas and Nike labels, and the famous Chinese liquor Wuliangye.

"We found that one of the factors contributing to the serious counterfeit drug problem is that bulk chemicals are freely available from unauthorized pharmaceutical manufactures," said Wang Xunbiao, Pfizer China's PR manager.

"These substances can easily be acquired by drug counterfeiters and used as active ingredients in phony drugs," Wang said.

At the same news conference, Zhao Gang, from the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, said industry and commerce management departments at all levels reported 51,851 cases involving trademark infringements last year, up 27 percent on 2003.

They included 40,171 trademark counterfeits, up 51.6 percent year-on-year, 5,401 of which involved foreign trademarks, up 158 percent. A total of 82 suspects involved in 96 cases were sent to judicial departments.

The administration said that it will continue the campaign to protect trademarks across the country.

Thirteen government departments, including the National Office of Rectification and Standardization of Market Economic Order, the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China and the Ministry of Information Industry, plan to jointly launch a campaign on intellectual property rights protection from April 20 to 26, in an effort to increase public awareness of intellectual property and stifle counterfeiting.

(China Daily, Xinhua News Agency April 8, 2005)