Lovers let down by fake Viagra
2000-12-08 11:19
Shanhai - Barely half a year after entering the Chinese market, authorities
in Shanghai have already found 24 fakes of the Viagra
anti-impotence pill on the market, news reports said on Friday.
The Shanghai Daily reports that in November police discovered an
illegal factory producing fakes of the famed blue pills in a
Shanghai suburb.
Viagra, made by the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, is
considerably more expensive than local sex potency products, making
it a very profitable target for counterfeiters.
Complaints by overseas firms and multinationals of counterfeiting
worth millions of dollars have mounted in recent months.
The overseas firms and multinationals are pressing Beijing to take
action against the counterfeiters before the country is due to join
the World Trade Organisation.
Despite Beijing's promises to take strong countermeasures, many of
the counterfeiters have the protection of corrupt local
authorities. And in some areas of China the production of fake
goods has become central to those regions' economies. - Sapa-DPA
- SAPA