"I appreciate the hard work and commitment the government is showing," David Taylor, general manager of Proctor & Gamble China, said.

"This is just a small step in fixing the massive counterfeit problem in China."

He said: "Tougher laws, more prosecutions, much higher civil penalties and continued work to stop local protectionism must be aggressively implemented to prevent counterfeiters going back to the market."

The Chinese Government launched a large-scale campaign against counterfeit products across the country on October 26 last year.

Official statistics show that up until early February, the government had destroyed 32,000 kinds of counterfeit products and confiscated goods worth a total of 5.5 billion yuan (US$664.2 million). These included fake foreign brands worth about 400 million yuan (US$48.3 million).

An official from Johnson & Johnson's said in late February that thanks to the government's crackdown on counterfeiting, the company had been able to turn around declining sales of band-aids. He said the company had been forced to dramatically reduce the production of band-aids in China since 1998, when fakes appeared on the market.

No official statistics are available, but counterfeiting is believed to be an acute problem in China.

Foreign brands are the main victims of counterfeiting.

Some foreign-backed companies set up the Quality Brand Protection Committee last March to unite their efforts in fighting counterfeit products. Proctor & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson's are among the committee's 62 members at present.

Taylor said he is glad that the Chinese Government is taking real efforts to address the counterfeiting.

The problem hurts the Chinese economy and the China market, as well as Chinese consumers, he said.

He vowed to continue to work with the government to help fight counterfeiting.

But he held that "campaigns cure the symptoms of the problem but not the underlying cause."

He noted that it was important for the government to toughen its laws and punishment on counterfeiters.

Counterfeiters are not prosecuted, fined and jailed severely enough to act as a deterrent, he said.

Taylor said he is hopeful the problem will be controlled after the country adopts harsher penalties.

(China Daily 03/15/2001)