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Xiangyang Market - the Shopping Paradise CHINA’S thriving business in pirate versions of Prada, Dolce & Gabbana and Fendi may soon be at an end after Shanghai city authorities closed a market famous for fake designer goods. Piracy is a multibillion-pound business in China, and nearly all the designer clothes sold on the streets are fake. But the Government wants to be seen to be doing something about the problem as it tries to boost its international image, and has decided to drive the pirates off the streets. Xiangyang Road market was just off the main shopping street of Huaihai Road, and the fake Rolexes and designer goods sold were sought after by tourists and local people alike. It is the first target of the Government’s crackdown, but others are certain to follow. Shanghai is not the only target of the campaign. This week a Beijing court awarded its first copyright damages against the city’s famous Silk Alley market, which also peddles pirate wares, after Burberry, Chanel, Prada, Gucci and Louis Vuitton sued the landlord. The landlord and vendors have been ordered to pay £7,400 in compensation in what is being seen as a test case. Also this week the American coffee chain Starbucks won its case against a Chinese rival called Xingbake, which is the Chinese translation of Starbucks. Silk Alley, which is near the US Embassy, was recently refurbished to become more of a mall than a market. There is little sign of a campaign against piracy, and most of the big brands are still on display. Some of the counterfeit goods are obvious: adidas spelt Adiddass, and shirts with Hugo Boss labels but Ralph Lauren logos. For other items, such as amazingly good copies of Hermès handbags, touts approach potential buyers and take them to nearby lanes to show what they have to offer. Most vendors believe that the campaign will merely force them to sell their wares more discreetly. Many of the goods are produced in factories in the provinces, often with local government backing, so production is unlikely to slow. The crackdown has extended to all areas of piracy. Local DVD shops, which used to sell openly a good selection of the latest Hollywood releases for about 70p, now keep them in the back of the shop, and clients must ask to see them. They are displayed only in the evening, when the shopowners assume that the anti-counterfeit police will have finished their rounds. The US Motion Picture Association believes that 95 per cent of its members’ products were pirated in China at a cost to the industry of £160 million in 2004. Some say that counterfeiting is rife because China is a Confucian society, which holds imitation to be the sincerest form of flattery. But it offers an opportunity to turn a quick profit and, in a country where the rural daily wage is slightly more than 50p, there is little sympathy for the multinationals’ concerns about the devaluation of their products. There is growing concern, however, about the piracy of items such as medicines, baby formula and aircraft parts. |