A total of 2,529,984 counterfeit printing supplies were seized in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) regions from November, 2008 through January, 2010, said a report.

HP, the leading technology company, recently released an anti-counterfeit whitepaper ‘Countering the counterfeiters’, giving a background on the scale of the counterfeit problem in the region.

Counterfeiting in printing supplies is estimated to be a multi-billion dollar trade worldwide, with organised crime syndicates often behind the illegal manufacture, distribution and sale of printer cartridges, said Amin Mortazavi, HP Middle East IPG general manager.

HP Middle East has announced an increased focus on combating counterfeit printing supplies in the Middle East, he added.

Counterfeit printing supplies do not give the same high-quality printing normally expected with a genuine HP product, and it is well known that counterfeit products can cause serious damage to the printer, often invalidating the warranty as well, the report said.

“I believe that as anti-counterfeit awareness increases, the counterfeit business will go down – we are on the right track,” Mortazavi said.

As the world’s largest provider of printing and digital imaging equipment and supplies, HP is particularly susceptible to the estimated eight percent counterfeit rate in the nearly 30 billion ($36.7 billion) euro market for printing consumables in EMEA, a statement said.

More than two-thirds of purchasers surveyed (70 per cent) indicated that a health risk was sufficient incentive to eschew fakes, as is the prospect of wasting money (54 per cent), inferior service (54 per cent) and harm to personal property (59 per cent).

The report also disclosed that 79 per cent of UK consumers would not buy counterfeits if they knew they were helping to finance criminal activities. – TradeArabia News Service