In a national step-up fight against piracy, Chinese customs have cracked a growing number of counterfeiting cases, an increase of 30 percent annually since China's entry in the WTO in 2001.

About 1,210 piracy trade cases, involving 99.78 million yuan (12.3 million U.S. dollars) were cracked in 2005, and 88.3 percent of them were involved in exports, Gong Zheng, deputy director of China's General Administration of Customs said Monday.

Speaking at a press conference on anti-piracy fight held by various departments including the authorities of customs, police and the industrial and commerce administration, Gong said among the 1,210 cases cracked last year, 91.4 percent were related to trademark piracy of clothes, shoes, hats, toys, and plastic goods.

International brands such as Nike, Adidas, Nokia, Philips and several domestic big brands are the most commonly couterfeited products, Gong said.

Gong said the customs have also confiscated 210 million pirated disc shipped in from foreign countries since 1999.

Meanwhile, the police have arrested 2,119 suspects for intellectual property rights violations in 2005, an increase of 56 percent from a year before.

Zheng Shaodong, assistant minister of the Ministry of Public Security, said the money involved in last year's IPR cases topped 1,28 billion yuan, surging 366 percent from the previous year.

Source: Xinhua