By Casey Hall
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Chinese authorities on Thursday destroyed a giant haul of counterfeit products purporting to be from brands such as Nike and Louis Vuitton at an event held across 17 provinces and cities, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
In all, 3,000 tonnes of counterfeit products valued at 500 million yuan ($69 million) were burnt, dismantled or thrown into landfill, CCTV said.
Items in the haul included bottled alcohol sporting brands from Treasury Wine Estates and high-end baijiu producer Kweichow Moutai, state media reported.
A statement from the State Administration for Market Regulation, which did not name any brands, quoted Sichuan official Yang Xingping as saying the government has prioritised cracking down on infringement, and was “forcefully rectifying illegal and chaotic phenomena through an iron fist”.
The “destruction operation” was part of the 2022 China Fair Competition Policy Publicity Week. Such public displays are not uncommon in the country, where counterfeit production remains a large industry in spite of attempts to eradicate it.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has estimated global trade in counterfeit products was as much as $464 billion in 2019 and said a boom in e-commerce in 2020-21 led to massive growth in the supply of such goods.
($1 = 7.2485 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Casey Hall; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
