ArmInfo. According to the World Trade Organization rates of growth of world trade will continue to slacken and at the background of this amount of counterfeit products will grow. According to the survey held in 2015 these goods have already accounted for 3% of world trade, Minister of Economy and Financial Policy of the European Economic Commission Timur Suleimanov stated on November 22 within the plenary session of the 4th "Anti-Counterfiet-2016" International Forum.
According to him in 2014 the amount of counterfeit products totaled $250 bln, which grew by 84.4% in 2015 to $461 bln. "In order to realize how serious the problem is one should know that $461 bln is practically equal to GDP of a large European country", he stressed. In the current conditions according to Suleimanov it is necessary to develop methods for raising competitiveness and deepening cooperation with partners. "It is not a secret that those countries, with which we build or plan to establish free trade zones and sign agreements on economic cooperation are unfortunately the main suppliers of counterfeit products, including China-63% of counterfeit products in the world, India-3%, Singapur-1.5%", he informed. According to the Minister on the current stage the partner countries should first and foremost ensure protection of intellectual property and set norms of customs cooperation.
Minister of Economic Integration and Reforms, Deputy Prime Minister of Armenia Vache Gabrielyan for his part stated that for solution of this problem coordinated actions are needed, which will be based on principles of law, openness and integrity. "Recently an agreement on coordinating actions on defending intellectual property rights in the EEU countries has come into force, which will allow forming coordinated policy in fighting lawbreakers in this field and develop cooperation among the authorized bodies", he stressed. During the forum Armenia and Russia signed a joint statement on combating illegal turnover of industrial products and deepening of integration to develop interstate cooperation in this issue.
To note, the 4th "Anti-Counterfiet-2016" International Forum is being held in Yerevan between November 22 and 23. Representatives of the World Intellectual Property Organization, Eurasian Economic Commission, World Customs Organization, International Trademark Association, as well as officials from Armenia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan's law enforcement bodies and license agencies.
