Hong Kong Customs, the Guangdong Sub-Administration of the General Administration of Customs of the People's Republic of China and Macao Customs Service convened the third Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Customs Intellectual Property Enforcement Cooperation Meeting yesterday and today (September 5 and 6). The Assistant Commissioner (Intelligence and Investigation) of Customs and Excise, Mr Mark Woo; the Level I Bureau Rank Official of the Guangdong Sub-Administration of the General Administration of Customs of the People's Republic of China, Ms Liu Hong; and the Acting Assistant Director-General of Macao Customs Service, Mr Ip Va-chio, led respective delegations to attend the meeting in Hong Kong.
During the meeting, the three Customs administrations summarised recent enforcement outcomes of intellectual property rights (IPR) protection. Taking the 12-day joint enforcement operation conducted from August 21 to September 1 as an example, the three administrations stepped up inspections of goods destined for North America, Europe as well as countries and regions along the Belt and Road across the three places, and eventually succeeded in curbing cross-boundary counterfeit goods transshipment activities. During the operation, Hong Kong Customs seized about 23 000 items of suspected counterfeit goods with an estimated market value of about $16 million.
In addition, Mr Woo put forward three collaboration directions for IPR enforcement in the Greater Bay Area (GBA): (1) strengthen co-operation on real-time intelligence exchanges, risk management, and the use of big data to proactively monitor and analyse the trends of related crimes; (2) enhance the training and exchanges among frontline officers. Hong Kong Customs will organise next year an IPR protection workshop for Customs authorities in the Asia-Pacific region to deepen the understanding of respective laws and jurisdictions among enforcement officers and facilitate the sharing of enforcement experiences; and (3) strengthen connections between the three Customs administrations and the IPR industry, and expand multiple communication platforms to contribute to the high-quality development of China.
The three parties agreed to the collaboration directions and pledged to safeguard intellectual property rights in the GBA.
The Customs authorities of Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao have all along placed great importance on IPR protection. In order to implement the Outline Development Plan for Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the three have strengthened their collaboration in intellectual property protection through intelligence exchanges, joint operations, and visits and exchanges, since 2019. The biennial Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Customs Intellectual Property Enforcement Cooperation Meeting also serves as a valuable platform for them to summarise co-operative achievements, exchange enforcement experiences, and formulate future enforcement strategies.
Ends/Wednesday, September 6, 2023
