Shoes, clothing, handbags, electronics: while trading in items that violate international intellectual property laws is illegal, the relevant market has revived in recent years. According to data from the OECD-EUIPO Global Trade in Fakes report, trade in counterfeit goods was worth around US$449 billion in 2019. Watches and clothing is about as lucrative as running a mid-sized European country.
For example, Ireland’s economy generated around $431 billion, according to the OECD, while Portugal ranked seventh among the organization’s member nations at $372 billion. Interestingly, the market size of the counterfeit goods trade is also roughly in the same range as Hong Kong’s $466 billion GDP, which itself accounts for around 20 percent of the value of items seized between 2017 and 2019.
During that period, the former and China together accounted for almost 80 percent of the volume and around 90 percent of the value of the counterfeit trade. Turkey, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates ranked third, fourth and fifth in terms of value, with Turkey standing out with around 10 percent of the total volume of goods confiscated. The authors of the report further point out that this does not necessarily mean that the counterfeits came from these economies, but that these states could also have served as a transit point for said articles.
Trade in counterfeit or pirated goods accounted for 2.5 percent of world trade and about 6 percent of imports into the European Union in 2019, according to the publication. While the report doesn’t cite specific numbers, the global pandemic has also impacted a specific market, with border closures and limited manufacturing capacity leading to an increased influx of counterfeit medicines and personal protective equipment such as masks, gloves and disinfectants.
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