The destroyed fake products were later sent to a local power plant as garbage under the supervision of Ningbo customs officers.

Yao Sudong, deputy director of Ningbo Customs, said the move was part of customs efforts to protect intellectual property rights (IPR).

Ningbo Customs has seized 10 million yuan worth of pirated international brandname products in 37 cases over the past two years.

Paul Ranjard, a representative from UDF, a non-governmental French association of manufacturers, expressed his appreciation ofthe efforts made by Chinese customs departments after witnessing the destruction.

Chinese customs departments had taken all necessary measures to fight against piracy, including close contacts with manufacturers of the brandname products likely to be pirated, said Yao.

Ningbo port is an important channel for export and import products in prosperous southeast China, through which a large number of products manufactured by local companies are shipped foroverseas markets. Some have been found to be fake.

By the end of last year, Chinese customs departments had handled about 1,800 IPR-related cases involving 300 million yuan worth of pirated products, official sources said.

(Xinhua News Agency April 16, 2002)