“Criminals are taking advantage of globalization and loose border arrangements to disguise the scale and locations of their operations.”
Fiji Revenue and Customs Services Chief Executive Officer Visvanath Das has made this comment as experts from World Customs Organization and China Customs are in Fiji conducting a Sub‑Regional Workshop for Oceania Members on Combating Counterfeiting and Piracy.
Da says everyone will agree that rapid economic, technological and social changes have brought an unprecedented era of beneficent international trade, migration and communication throughout the World.
However, he says such changes have also produced a much more sinister by‑product in the form of international crime, terrorism, arms trafficking, counterfeiting and piracy.
Das stressed that due to the high level exploitation by counterfeiters, enhancement of Intellectual Property Right knowledge is crucial.
He says capacity building in the fight against infringements of Intellectual Property Right is vital for Customs Administrations faced with the double burden of ensuring trade facilitation whilst simultaneously working to protect the health safety of consumers against trade of fake products.
The workshop will finish in Nasese on Friday.
