DUBAI: Veiled Arab women mingle with Western tourists in shorts to browse shelves full of Gucci and Christian Dior handbags — sleek goods which look a little too upmarket for such a modest shop.
“Louis Vuitton copies are in the back,” the Iranian proprietor tells a customer conspiratorially. “Their local agent is active and we have had raids.” The shop also sells copies of designer watches.
Swoops on such businesses have reduced the traffic in counterfeit goods and have helped place Dubai at the forefront of the fight against trade piracy in the Middle East.
But experts say the booming commercial hub is still a regional gateway for the spread of fakes across the region.
“Dubai is the victim of its own success,” said Scott Butler, chief executive officer of the Arabian Anti-Piracy Alliance, a private watchdog.
“Lots of goods go through Dubai’s ports and airport and there are complaints in the region and as far away as South Africa that counterfeit goods they seize came through here,” he added.
A regional tourism hub, Dubai draws five million visitors a year to its bustling shopping centres, a figure it hopes to triple by 2010. Many buy cheap counterfeit goods to take home.
Officials say the United Arab Emirates’ large modern ports and airports make it a favourite destination for smugglers. One veteran trader said Dubai’s streamlined import procedures, in a region known for its bureaucracy, attracted the pirates.
“The UAE is advanced in the way goods are brought in and out of the country and that is why these criminals try and use it,” Mohammed al-Marri, Dubai Customs director of operations, told the daily Emirates Today. “But our customs security is as strict as anywhere in the world and we are stopping them.”
Sectors plagued by piracy in the Persian Gulf include software, music, films, pay television and cigarettes.
“UAE is a major transit-way for counterfeit goods, including cigarettes. Cigarettes are relatively cheap here so most pass through to expensive markets such as Europe,” Dale Davis, brand protection manager at British American Tobacco, told Reuters.
He said over 90 per cent of such cigarettes came from China.—Reuters
