Showing great concerns over the mushroom growth of fake, illegal and substandard products in the country, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) has called upon the government to ensure proper implementation of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) to save genuine businesses and consumers from losses.

Zahid Maqbool, President, ICCI said that violation of IPRs is hampering the economic development of the country by discouraging competition, new research and investments. He said evil practices like piracy, counterfeiting and infringement of IPRs affect almost every sector of the economy inflicting huge losses to the genuine businesses, general public as well as to the national exchequer.

He lamented that due to deteriorating IPRs situation in the country, one can easily find “number two” versions of almost every product in the market ranging from foodstuffs, tea, auto-parts, soft drinks, electrical appliances, perfumes, clothing, footwear, pesticides, washing powder, toothpaste, glassware, cosmetics, toys, sunglasses and even life-saving drugs.

He said that flooding of markets with spurious drugs was badly hurting the health of people. Highlighting multiple negative effects of IPRs violation, he said it is hurting the overall investment, business climate, cost of doing genuine business, consumer interest in terms of competitive quality & prices and Pakistan’s integration with global market.

Zahid Maqbool said implementation of IPRs will produce many benefits to the economy including more investment, development of new industries accompanied by new job opportunities, innovation, new product development, absorption of new technologies, incentives to produce better quality products at lower costs, improved production and continuous increase in government revenues/taxes etc.