Call for stringent IP laws, effective enforcement to fight counterfeit products

Speakers at a conference here on Friday underscored the need for stringent intellectual property laws, their effective enforcement, and awareness among the masses to fight the menace of counterfeit and pirated products not only to mitigate its economic impact and protect rights of consumers and investors but also to attract foreign investment.

The conference, organised by Unilever Pakistan in collaboration with Brand Protection System (BPS), discussed at length the current IP laws, regulations and practices and explored solutions to tackle this critical issue.

Speaking on the occasion, Amir Paracha, chairman and chief executive officer of Unilever Pakistan, lamented lack of coordination among the stakeholders to check counterfeit products in the FMCG sector. “The country is going through challenging times. Our biggest issue is dollar as we are not bringing enough dollars to meet our expenses,” he said.

“There are three ways to fetch dollars: One is to increase exports, the second is to augment remittances and third is to bring the foreign direct investment.”

Paracha said the country attracted $1 billion worth of FDI last year, as compared to $44 billion FDI inflows to our neighbouring country. In the past 75 years, Pakistan could attract a total FDI of $52 billion, which was 0.5 per cent of GDP and our highest FDI in a year was $5 billion in 2007, which was 3.5 per cent of GDP, he said, adding that on the other hand, the neighbouring country recorded $950 billion inflows in the last 75 years.

He said no investor, company or brand would be willing to come to Pakistan if the stakeholders drew the lines and squabbled with one another instead of addressing the issue. In the prevailing circumstances, investors had not only economic but reputational risks as well, he added.

Paracha suggested the establishment of a task force to have a coordinated approach to the problem. He was of the view that if stringent laws related to trademark, patent, copyrights and designs were put in place, the country would be able to attract a lot of foreign investment.

Aman Ghanchi, Unilever Pakistan’s director legal and company secretary, said counterfeit products and infringement of intellectual property rights were taking away the shares of legitimate taxpayers as well as depriving consumers of their right to have genuine products.

“The first and foremost challenge in protecting our brands is to identify the stakeholders. We have been discussing this issue with a number of people and organisations but the real challenge is who the stakeholders are,” he maintained. “The biggest stakeholder who is being deprived of basic right is a consumer. We all in the corporate world are directly linked to the supply model but consumers are not only part of it but also deprived of their right and not being made aware of what they are losing.”

He said the corporate sector was responsible for creating awareness among the masses, adding that in these challenging times, the most important thing for consumers was price and people went for a cheaper product despite knowing that it was harmful for them. He regretted that IPR laws were weak and there was lack of an agency to enforce these laws.

“The FIA has done great work in protecting copyrights, but from the trademark and design perspective, we are still lagging behind,” he underscored. He said there was also lack of cohesiveness among the stakeholders. “If somebody is doing something, it is in their silos. We need to break these silos and make the stakeholders understand exposure or risk counterfeit and infringements carry,” he added.

He said the Intellectual Property Organisation of Pakistan (IPO) that was supposed to take care of brands and IPR, but unfortunately it was ineffective.

Muhammad Kashif Aslam, managing director of the Brand Protection System, highlighted that counterfeiting of FMCG was 28 per cent of the overall counterfeiting in the world. He called for a comprehensive approach and stringent laws to check proliferation of fake products.

Iftikhar Ahmed, director general of Transit Trade, said the Pakistan Customs’ laws related to intellectual property rights were only applicable to imported goods and not transit shipments. “Unless we fix the laws, we won’t be able to check transit of counterfeit products,” he added.

Ehsan Malik, CEO of the Pakistan Business Council, suggested that the FMCG industry should enhance the distribution systems, as the greater number of outlets it would cover, the more it would be able to counter counterfeit products.

Others also spoke on the occasion.