Hanoi struggles to combat counterfeiters HANOI - Vietnam faces an uphill battle stemming the tide of industrial counterfeiting across the country although the government hopes a new decree will add teeth to enforcement efforts, a senior official said. Tran Viet Hung, deputy director general at the National Office of Industrial Property of Vietnam, said counterfeit violations on goods and services had risen in the past several years and affected many foreign companies. The key obstacles to halting violations were a lack of legal deterrence and problems enforcing regulations, he said. ``The situation with counterfeit goods is serious and on the rise,'' Hung said in an interview late on Wednesday. He said the World Trade Organisation had not made the issue a key requirement for Hanoi's eventual entry into the body, but the government realised it must show foreign companies that industrial property rights would be protected. Hung said his office recorded complaints and assisted other government authorities in trying to stop violations by using administrative measures such as fines. The office recognised 34 classes of industrial goods and eight types of services, he said. Items such as software were handled by another department charged with copyright issues. Counterfeit goods are widely available in Vietnam and range from food, drinks, medicine, cosmetics, detergents to construction materials and spare parts for motorbikes. Hung said 239 cases were recorded by his office last year compared with 52 in 1995. Of those last year more than 90 involved foreign-invested enterprises. Other government authorities had estimated there were thousands of violations across Vietnam, he added. Highlighting the problem, Hung said that in Hanoi and the business hub of Ho Chi Minh City only around 10 legal suits had ever been filed by claimants at civil courts. On the other hand, criminal courts had heard hundreds of cases because these could be prosecuted directly by police and did not require the claimant to press charges. ``Courts are not playing enough of a deterrence role. Civil courts require a claimant to file a suit and the reason they don't is the expense and complicated process,'' Hung said. But Hung said a March 6 decree on administrative settlement for industrial property should empower enforcement. He said the new measure gave detailed descriptions of what constituted counterfeit violations and raised the maximum fine to 100 million dong ($7,200). While fines could still be higher, Hung said this was better than current levels where fines were so small the violators paid them and kept producing the fake goods. A firm that had once imitated the popular La Vie branded mineral water was fined a mere one million dong ($72), he said. La Vie is produced by a joint venture between Perrier Vittel SA of France and a Vietnamese firm. Perrier Vittel is a subsidiary of Swiss-based food group Nestle SA Reuters - May 12, 1999.