European businessmen blasted South Korea Wednesday as one of the world's largest counterfeit exporting and consuming countries with Internet sites emerging as a major distribution channel.
South Korea's intellectual property rights (IPR) infringement is "far worse" than that in other advanced countries, said IPR committee head Peter Thewlis of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in Korea (EUCCK).
"Korea is still recognised as one of the largest counterfeit exporting and consuming countries in the world," he said.
South Korean counterfeit goods are "most popular and highest priced" in Shanghai, China, due to their elaborate quality, he said.
He said any foreigner can easily find copycat and counterfeit goods in downtown Seoul, with South Korean products representing the largest portion of all counterfeit goods seized by Japan last year.
"Especially, the Internet sites have recently become the major distribution channel for counterfeit criminals and are nowadays inundated with counterfeit goods and illegal products every day," he said.
The IPR committee said in a report that because of high manufacturing costs, many counterfeit facilities have moved from South Korea to China and other neighbouring countries.
Counterfeit goods manufactured overseas are imported back into South Korea, it said.
The committee said the protection of intellectual property rights remains a major concern for many European companies doing business here.
"The lack of adequate (IPR) protection is often cited by foreign investors as one of the major causes for refraining from making investments in Korea," it said.
South Korea's legal framework had shown considerable progress compared with international standards.
"However, production, marketing and exports of counterfeit goods are still not deterred effectively in the ordinary market place because enforcement actions by the Korean authorities lack apparent continuous effort," the committee said.
It complained a growing number of websites in South Korea are misappropriating the intellectual rights of well-known foreign brands and companies.
It urged South Korea to strengthen regulations on unfair and unethical on-line business practices and set up more stringent domain name application procedures.
EUCCK president Marcos Gomez said South Korea should remove trade barriers and unfair taxation on imported cars.
"This issue could probably lead to trade complaints from other countries against Korea due to the unbalanced trade values," he said.
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