Experts attending the three-day Interpol Regional Programme at Crown Plaza Hotel.
DOHA: The General Directorate of Customs confiscated over 850 consignments of counterfeit products in 2013, which included 679 cases of commercial fraudulent and 162 violations related to intellectual property rights. These commercial violations were in addition to the daily seizures of banned products, local Arabic daily Al Sharq reported yesterday.
According to the report, movement of counterfeit products worldwide in 2006 constituted nearly 10 percent of the global trade accounting worth $800bn. The Arab countries constituted approximately 6.5 percent of such an illegal trade involving counterfeit products and other cases of commercial violations.
The value of such illegal trade in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region is about $18bn, and Saudi Arabia, given the size of its economy, leads the region with $11bn worth of counterfeit products sold in the oil-rich Gulf state.
Citing figures from the Ministry of Economy and Trade, the daily reported that the cases of commercial fraudulent in Qatar jumped 145 in 2011 from 30 in 2010. However, the total number of commercial violations, including counterfeit products and other commercial fraudulent, in 2011 reached to 800, according to the report.
Qatar has been striving to counter the trafficking such illegal products. A three-day event titled “Interpol Regional Programme”, was held here from March 9 to 11, to counter trafficking of fake and counterfeit goods and crimes related to intellectual property.
The programme was organised to honour the cadets who specialised in the protection of intellectual property rights and get them well trained to counter similar crimes and build up cooperation with international bodies that are involved in fight against such crimes.
The seminar discussed several important topics, including the ongoing battle against cyber crimes, the regional and technological initiatives to face the changing challenges, counterfeiting and piracy, trademark counterfeiting and the methods to distinguish between the original goods and their mimics.
Capt Jassim Abdul Rahman al Sulaiti, the Criminal intelligence officer at Interpol Sub-directorate for combating corruption and financial crime, presented paper on “Protection of intellectual property to confront the national and transnational crimes of counterfeit goods and commercial fraud”.
The Peninsula
