China arrested a total of 2,505 suspects last year for making or marketing fake or shoddy goods that pose serious threat to the people's life and property, up 56.9 percent from a year ago, China's chief procurator said Wednesday.
  
Jia Chunwang, procurator-general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, told a session of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's legislature, in his annual work report that China also prosecuted a total of 2,124 suspects, up 56.2 percent, on making or marketing fake or shoddy products ranging from powdered milk, alcohol, pharmaceuticals, fertilizer and pesticide.
  
In addition, the country's procuratorate organs approved arrests of 602 suspects on charge of infringement of registered trademarks, patents and copyrights, and prosecuted 638 suspects on the same charges, up 13.4 percent and 6.3 percent respectively from a year ago.
 
The making and marketing of fake and fraudulent commodities and the infringement on intellectual property rights (IPR) have caused increasing attention in the country. The government has vowed to step up efforts to crack down.
  
China launched a one-year-long campaign from last September to crack down on IPR infringements. In two months following the action, Chinese police investigated more than 1,000 cases related to IPR infringement, involving 550 million yuan (US$66.5 million), according to official figures.
  
In addition, Chinese administrative authorities handled more than 9,800 IPR-related cases and confiscated more 10 billion pieces of fake goods.
   
Wu Yi, vice-premier of China, told US officials and business people in a meeting last January that China is resolved to protect IPR.
  
"Turning a blind eye to IPR infringement is a short-sighted act," Wu said at a meeting last year. "Such acts will not only seriously undermine market economic order and hamper China's economic growth, but also ruin the prestige and image of the country and influence China's future opening-up."
  
In an effort to step up the protection of IPR, the NPC adopted a legal interpretation of the criminal penalty on IPR infringement at the end of 2004. The interpretation greatly lowered the benchmark for criminal punishment and provided more effective means in the fight against IPR violation.
  
As a major event in the fight against shoddy and inferior products, China detained 47 people last May for an inferior milk powder incident, in which at least 12 babies died of malnutrition after being fed with substandard milk powder made of starch, sugar, milk essence and other cheap ingredients.
  
China will continue cracking down on fake and shoddy goods for farming use this year,  Minister of Agriculture Du Qinglin pledged last week as the country is entering the spring plowing period and farmers are busy preparing farming materials like fertilizers, pesticides and seeds.
  
According to Du, his ministry and several other ministries of the Chinese government will jointly launch a thorough check of the market, focusing on seed strains, pesticides, fertilizers, fodder and animal medicines.   

(Xinhua News Agency March 9, 2005)