China Overrun With Irony

Merchandisers for the Beijing Olympics 2008 are frustrated by the availability of unauthorized apparel and souvenirs being produced by merchandise pirates.

Authorities had investigated about 80 commercial and personal Web sites selling fake Olympic merchandise, or lacking licenses to sell the legitimate product. "The supply channels on these illegal Web sites are chaotic," Xie Funing, a spokesman with the Olympic E-commerce Operation Centre, was quoted to say.

The Global Congress on Combating Counterfeiting and Piracy, called the illicit trade "a global epidemic reaching a scale now too great for individual governments, industry sectors or companies to solve."

China is the largest supplier of counterfeited merchandise worldwide. It is estimated to cost legitimate manufacturers $50 billion in sales.


Tags: [Beijing 2008]   [Fake Merchandise]   [China]
[Global Congress on Combating Counterfeiting]