BEIJING - The European Union (EU) and China are to establish a jointly developed network to exchange information between their ports, as part of the struggle against counterfeiting, said EU Taxation and Customs Commissioner László Kovács during a visit he paid recently to Beijing.
The Commissioner added that the two regions are working together on a concrete ‘Action Plan on Intellectual Property Rights’ that will target pirated medications, toys and auto parts.
According to China’s News Agency, Xinhua, Kovács met the Chinese Minister of the General Administration of Customs, Mu Xinsheng, at the 3rd Joint Customs Cooperation Committee Meeting between China and the EU, where the ‘Action Plan on Intellectual Property Rights’ was developed.
The Commissioner hopes that the Action Plan will include specific commitments from both parties to strengthen cooperation on protecting Intellectual Property, and more generally a partnership between the private sectors in China and the EU.
The purpose of the action plan is to better target counterfeit trade by:
- Exchanging pre-arrival/departure data on containers loaded on vessels leaving their territory among Customs;
- Using electronic seals on containers to ensure a secure end-to-end supply chain;
- Applying minimum control standards on containers and communicating the control results electronically;
- Defining common risk indicators to help select ‘high risk’ containers for controls;
- Reducing overall controls on imports through recognition of controls on exports, thereby ensuring that any remaining import controls focus on particularly high-risk items.
Kovács and Xinsheng also discussed a possible bilateral cooperation agreement to tackle the trade of drug ‘precursors’, which are often used to manufacture illicit synthetic drugs.