The challenge for Dubai is ensuring that trade transactions respect international laws.

A counterfeit is an imitation that is made usually with the intent to deceptively represent its content or origins. The word counterfeit most frequently describes forged currency or documents, but can also describe clothing, software, pharmaceuticals, watches, or more recently, cars and motorcycles, especially when this results in patent infringement or trademark infringement.
Asian exporting countries, mainly China, should provide enough information about their exports to help in the fight against counterfeiting, the head of the World Customs Organisation (WCO) told Middle-East-Online.com.
WCO Secretary-General Michel Danet said a transit hub like the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai could not curb the transiting of counterfeits if exporting countries did not cooperate.
“The problem for the emirate is making sure that all this trade is moving while still respecting international laws,“ he said on the sidelines of a conference on combating counterfeiting and piracy held in Dubai.
“If Dubai cannot rely on the cooperation of Asian countries and (mainly) China when there are 11 million containers (being handled annually in the emirate), not everything can be checked,“ he said.
He said the WCO and its partners, who took part in the fourth global congress to combat counterfeiting that ended last week, want to see cooperation between exporting and importing countries, including the transiting hubs.
In Dubai “they are trying to manage the problem. They have put in place the needed legislation and the teams but they don’t have information about what is arriving from China,“ for example, he said.
The city state Jebel Ali Free Zone is home to the largest man-made port in the world that handle the biggest container ships. Dubai ports handled some 8.92 million TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units) in 2006.
David Benjamin, co-chair of Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy, urged conference participants to call for “shutting down piracy in free trade zones“ worldwide, among other measures to fight counterfeiting.
Danet told a press conference earlier that Arab countries are cooperating to fight global counterfeiting, adding that the WCO has established cooperation with the Arab League and the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (PGCC).
“The PGCC countries have understood what is at stake and they don’t want to be contaminated by illicit goods,“ he said.
“Counterfeiting today kills people,“ Danet said, pointing out that medicines are also being counterfeited.
The spread of counterfeit goods has become global in recent years and the range of goods subject to infringement has increased significantly. It is often mentioned that counterfeit goods make up 5 to 7 percent of world trade, however, these figures cannot be substantiated. A recent report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development indicates that up to 200 billion US dollars could have been in counterfeit and pirated goods in 2005.
Certain consumer goods, especially very expensive or desirable brands, or those which are easy to reproduce cheaply, have become frequent targets of counterfeiting. The counterfeiters attempt to deceive the consumer into thinking they are purchasing a legitimate item, or convince the consumer that they could deceive others with the imitation. An item which doesn’t attempt to deceive, such as a copy of a DVD with missing or different cover art, is often called a “bootleg“ or a “pirated copy“ instead.
Some counterfeits may even have been produced in the same factory that produces the original, authentic product, using the same materials. The factory owner, unbeknownst to the trademark owner (and perhaps also the manufacturing staff), simply orders an intentional ’overrun’. Without the employment of anti-counterfeiting measures, identical manufacturing methods and materials make this type of counterfeit (and it is still a form of counterfeit, as its production and sale is unauthorized by the trademark owner) impossible to distinguish from the authentic article.
To try to avoid this all too common occurrence, companies may have the various parts of an item manufactured in independent factories and then limit the supply of certain distinguishing parts to the factory that performs the final assembly to the exact number required for the number of items to be assembled (or as near to that number as is practicable) and/or may require the factory to account for every part used and to return any unused, faulty, or damaged parts.
To help distinguish the originals from the counterfeits, the copyright holder may also employ the use of serial numbers and/or holograms etc., which may be attached to the product in another factory still.

Toyota Motor Corp., the world’s second-largest carmaker, reported the smallest profit gain in a year and said earnings may fall this quarter as the yen strengthens and US demand slows.
Net income rose 7.5 percent to 458.7 billion yen ($4.3 billion), or 144.43 yen a share, in the three months ended Dec. 31, the company said in a release today. That’s the slowest pace since the quarter ended December 2006. Sales rose 9.2 percent, the smallest gain in 2 1/2 years.
According to Bloomberg.com, profit may decline in the current quarter as consumer spending slows in the US and a stronger yen erodes earnings from exports of Prius gasoline-electric hybrids and Lexus LS sedans. The Toyota City, Japan-based carmaker will cancel 4.5 percent of existing shares, boosting earnings per share for a stock that fell 24 percent last year.
The company is basing estimates for fourth-quarter earnings on an exchange rate of 105 yen to the dollar and 155 yen to the euro. That compares with 119 yen and 156 yen in the same period in 2007.
“Our profit will probably fall in the fourth quarter,“ Senior Managing Director Takeshi Suzuki told reporters in Tokyo. “We’re getting hit by the currency, but our earnings will still be strong.“
The company trimmed its North American sales forecast by 20,000 units, or 0.7 percent, to 2.97 million vehicles for the 12 months ending March 31. The automaker reiterated its forecast for net income to rise 3.4 percent to 1.7 trillion yen in the year ending March 31.
A 1 yen gain in the Japanese currency against the dollar cuts Toyota’s annual operating profit by 35 billion yen, according to the company. The same increase against the euro trims 5 billion yen from operating profit.
Toyota’s global vehicle sales to dealers rose 5.6 percent to 2.28 million in the third quarter. It sold 241,000 vehicles in Asia excluding Japan, up 18 percent. Sales to dealers in North America fell 1 percent to 756,000 vehicles. The carmaker reiterated its global sales goal of 8.93 million vehicles for the annual period on higher demand in the Middle East and Asia outside Japan.
Honda, Japan’s second-largest automaker, said January 30 net income for the three months ended December 31 rose 38 percent because of higher sales of fuel-efficient cars in the US and Asia. Nissan boosted net income 27 percent in the quarter, it said on February 1.
President Katsuaki Watanabe, 65, led Toyota past Ford Motor Co. in the US last year and narrowed its gap with General Motors Corp. in global sales. Both companies increased sales in Russia, China and other emerging markets.
Toyota in December opened a plant in St. Petersburg, its first in Russia, to assemble as many as 50,000 vehicles a year. The company December 21 said it aims to raise production capacity to 200,000 to 300,000 vehicles a year in the future. The automaker also expects sales in China to reach 700,000 vehicles this year, helped by the introduction of the Yaris compact.
“The importance of emerging markets is increasing as demand in the US is expected to slip,“ said Hitoshi Yamamoto, who manages the equivalent of $5.5 billion in Japanese equities as chief executive officer of Fortis Asset Management in Tokyo.