KARACHI, Jan 8: As many as 13 national and multinational companies have formed an alliance - Anti-Counterfeit and Infringement Forum (ACIF) - to counter the growing violations of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) in Pakistan which has flooded markets with a large variety of counterfeit and dubious medicines, food items and consumer goods.
Speakers at the launch of the ACIF on Saturday pointed out that this large-scale violation of IPRs was causing national exchequer an annual revenue loss of Rs10 billion, much more losses to the national and multinational companies and pose a serious hazard to consumers' health and damage the machinery and equipment.
Senate Chairman Mohammad Mian Soomro launching the AFIC urged the national and multinational producers to create awareness among the consumers of the ill effects of counterfeit products on their health and the government revenue.
"I am deeply concerned about the exorbitant losses being sustained by all the genuine manufacturers as well as by the government due to IPR violations", the Senate chairman remarked. He said the IPR violations afflict the whole world and Pakistan too is under sway of counterfeit products.
He underscored the need for close coordination of the business and industry and the government to curb this menace which has now become a threat to the business, investment, government revenue and above all to the health of the consumers.
ACIF Chairperson Ms Amina Saiyid in her welcome address urged the government to work on a reform agenda to counter IPR violations. "The ultimate sufferers of IPR violations are the consumers who are buying substandard goods which are hazardous to their health," she stressed.
She demanded setting up of special IPR courts and strongly pleaded to make IPR violations cognizable and non-bailable with maximum deterrent punishments.
Her point was that the IPR violations were causing massive revenue losses to the national exchequer, bring immense losses to the national and multinational companies and were stopping the flow of new investment in the country.
Ms Amina drew the attention of the audience towards the losses being suffered by "our artists and writers" because of rampant piracy and the violations of copyright laws. "It is discouraging investment in information technology sector because market is flooded with counterfeit software products."
Amar Naser, a business executive of a local multinational dealing in consumer products, told the gathering IPR violations bring a bad name to the country and informed that Pakistan has been put on Special 301 watch list for IP protection since 1989.
He also gave a breakdown of the losses to government exchequer due to counterfeit products and pointed out that revenue loss from oil and lubricant segment is Rs1.6 billion, publishing Rs40 million and a substantial amount is loss from cigarette industry.