Vietnam's Battle Against Counterfeit Crises

Vietnam's Prime Minister, Pham Minh Chinh, calls for strategies to combat counterfeit goods, trade fraud, and smuggling. The government highlights rising online counterfeit cases, affecting health and social order. Over 34,000 fraud cases detected, while an ex-health official is arrested for bribery in a fake supplements case.

Vietnam's Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh has called on the nation's anti-counterfeit task force to develop new strategies to curb the proliferation of fake goods, trade fraud, and smuggling, according to a government statement. This initiative comes amid ongoing negotiations with the U.S. to prevent massive tariffs, during which Vietnam promised to address issues like intellectual property violations and the transshipment of Chinese goods across its borders.

Internal documents accessed by Reuters reveal that last month the government directed officials to intensify actions against counterfeiting, digital piracy, and the transshipment of goods—a practice frequently labeled as trade fraud by Vietnamese authorities—into the United States. The government noted that such fraudulent activities are increasingly rampant, particularly on digital platforms, citing instances where counterfeit food, milk, and supplements have posed significant risks to public health and social stability.

This year alone, authorities have uncovered over 1,100 intellectual property breaches, 25,100 trade and tax fraud incidents, and 8,200 cases of smuggling, the report indicated. No comparable figures were provided for context. Domestically, the production and distribution of counterfeit and substandard goods continue to rise within the e-commerce sector, which poses direct threats to consumer safety. Additionally, police have arrested a former head of the Ministry of Health's food safety department, Nguyen Thanh Phong, for allegedly accepting bribes to certify counterfeit supplements since 2016.

(With inputs from agencies.)