K-BEAUTY FANS COUNTERFEIT GOODS IN CHINA

[Anchor Lead]

With Korean beauty products becoming all the rage in China due to the Korean wave phenomenon, Chinese counterfeit medical beauty supplies are being sold in China as Korean made. Not only does this violate intellectual property rights, but concerns are rising over Korean products losing credibility in the market.

[Pkg]

Chinese authorities clamp down on a wholesale dealer and find a warehouse filled with boxes of dermal fillers and Botulinum toxin. With no documentation proving details of their production and import, these counterfeit medical supplies are sold as Korean made. Some 31-hundred items were confiscated at this single location with a market price of a staggering one billion won. The Korean Intellectual Property Office inspected wholesale markets and online vendors in China during a three-month survey from last July. The office detected circumstantial evidence pointing to counterfeit beauty and medical products sold as Korean made, and alerted Chinese authorities.

[Soundbite] Kim Si-hyung(Korean Intellectual Property Office) : "Counterfeit medical goods directly relate to public health. So the Chinese gov’t was very cooperative in clampdown efforts."

Korean beauty products are immensely popular in China due to the Korean wave, leading to widespread counterfeit production of Korean cosmetics and even medicine. Such fake products are secretly traded online through messenger apps at about one tenth of the regular price. This practice is feared to deal a blow to Korean firms' exports as well as the credibility of Korean products.

[Soundbite] (Manager of Beijing Intellectual Property Center) : "Chinese consumers have great trust in Korean products. If such counterfeits spread, they will become suspicious and shy away from using Korean products."

The office plans to continue to provide information on intellectual property right infringement to the domestic pharmaceutical industry and Chinese authorities to crack down on illegal distribution and sternly deal with related loss and damage.