HP Middle East underlined its commitment to local authorities and business partners in the fight against fake merchandise in Egypt at the recently concluded Cairo ICT 2010, a major IT and networking event.

HP Middle East partnered with local authorities to battle with the growing social and economic issue around counterfeit inks and cartridges in Egypt.

Many studies indicate that often small and medium size businesses in Egypt are tempted to save costs by sourcing cheaper goods, which contributes to the $200 billion in annual global trade of counterfeit merchandise. The allure of imitation goods, especially now with the global economic downturn, is seductive, a statement said.

While counterfeiting of print cartridges for HP’s LaserJet and inkjet printers is a global issue, the Middle East and Africa are areas where organised counterfeit activity is especially rampant.

HP cooperates with law enforcement authorities to identify and seize counterfeit products, cut off distribution routes and prosecute fraudsters.

In HP’s fiscal year 2009 in EMEA, HP can report the seizure of nearly two million counterfeits and components intended for illegal reuse is more than twice the number of items confiscated during the previous year. In addition, HP noted more than 140 raids, 460 leads and 200 investigations.

In 2009, Ministry of Commerce in Egypt conducted raids in Alexandria where local authorities seized more than 27,000 finished fake laser and inkjet print cartridges and over 3000 empty print cartridges at five companies. The goods had been imported from China and Saudi Arabia. In addition, some shops were found to be running their own refilling activities.

HP Officials advised consumers to purchase cartridges from authorized HP resellers to ensure they are not counterfeit.

HP also highlighted the fact that counterfeit products can damage printers, decrease printers’ performance, cause reliability issues and that the print quality produced by these fake goods will not be up to the standards expected of genuine HP products.

HP has also joined the Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy (Bascap) Global Leadership Group as part of the company’s commitment to fight counterfeiting worldwide. – TradeArabia News Service