Counterfeiting: yearly damage to Italian companies between 12 and 17 billion euros

A cautious estimate of the damage to the Italian manufacturing industry caused by counterfeiting in 2002 is between 12.3 and 17.8 billion euros. The damage to the Italian Treasury, however, is around 1.2 to 1.8 billion euros. This is the assessment by the Veneto Region's Observatory on Security, by researchers at Transcrime, the Interuniversity Center of the University of Trento and by Milan's Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, which was presented at a conference at Abano Terme.

The top three countries of origin of the counterfeit products impounded by Italian customs during the first six months of 2003 are China (45%), Hong Kong (37%) and Thailand (14%).

Excluding the confiscation of cigarettes in the 2000-2003 period, the main products sequestered by Italian customs police were CDs, DVDs, audiocassettes (14.7% of the total); clothing accessories, especially handbags and sunglasses (10.4%); toys (3%).

The principal victims are companies, which suffer from damage due to direct losses (falloff in the sale of goods due to the difference in price between original and counterfeit products), and indirect losses (consumers buy counterfeit articles believing them to be original and therefore a slice of the market is lost).

(Source: Adnkronos)