Made In Italy rules have positive impact

01 April 2010

Four months after they were introduced, the impact of the recent rules on the protection of Made In Italy is encouraging.

According to the Italian Ministry of Economic Policies, in this short period of time almost 46 million counterfeited goods have been seized.

Before the new law was introduced, the Italian economy had suffered economic damage estimated at €5.28 billion a year.

But the new rules, which also introduced sanctions of up to €250,000, have enormously facilitated the work of the Revenue Corps and Customs Offices in their seizure work and their fight against counterfeits. Since September 2009, the results have been:

a 46% increase in the number of people reported to the authorities;
a 162% increase in the number of seized goods;
a 128% increase in the number of counterfeit fashion goods seized;
an 82% increase in seized real estate related to the counterfeit business;
the seizure of 23 million items in the fashion sector and 2 million articles of electronic goods; and
the seizure of 2.47 million toys and 17.64 million consumer goods items.

These successes have been obtained in the Italian territory alone. But, thanks to the new regulations, many of the operations carried out by the Revenue Corps have been performed on a European level and have enabled the countries through which the counterfeit goods arrive in Italy to be traced.