Hanoi (VNA) – The market management force of Vietnamis committed to strictly handling violations of intellectual property (IP)rights so as to create an optimal environment for foreign investors, includingthose from the Republic of Korea (RoK), an official of the Ministry of Industryand Trade (MoIT) has said.

The remark was made by Deputy Director of theMoIT’s Market Management Department Tran Hung at a workshop on raisingawareness of IP rights in Ho Chi Minh City on May 10. 

The event, co-held by the Market Management Departmentand the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA), aimed to enhance IPcooperation between Vietnam and the RoK and discuss solutions to fightcounterfeits.

Hung said implementing IP rights is increasinglyimportant to the socio-economic development of a country, especially amidst theintegration into a free trade market. Vietnam has continually attachedimportance to the protection and implementation of IP rights and achieved manynotable outcomes, he said.

He added although there remained manydifficulties in the fight against counterfeits and the implementation of IPrights, Vietnam’s managerial agencies always consider IP violations andcounterfeits as an act of economic sabotage.

At the workshop, representatives of RoKbusinesses said they have paid attention to and worked to ensure the IP issuesince they began investing in Vietnam. However, small- and medium-sizedenterprises (SMEs), especially supporting firms and those making use of lowlabour costs in Vietnam, haven’t attached much importance to IP rights.

Jaeheon Lee, from the Korea IntellectualProperty Service Centre, cited statistics as showing that more and more RoKbusinesses have been affected by IP right violations, counterfeit products andbrands, mainly cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and consumer goods, in the Vietnamesemarket. A survey of the RoK’s SMEs operating in Vietnam points out that onlysome 38 percent of the respondents have had favourable conditions to register IPrights.

She said the legal regulations on IP in Vietnamis relatively complete with the Law on Intellectual Property, the Civil Code,the Civil Procedure Code, and the Law on Competition, but punishments foradministrative violations are regulated in by-law documents.

This has led to an overlap and caused difficulties for bothenterprises and law enforcement bodies, she said, adding that it is also one ofthe causes of the big number of firms infringing IP rights.

Meanwhile, Vo Xuan Binh, an official of the MarketManagement Department, suggested RoK companies step up surveying thecounterfeit and IP rights violation situation and enhance public-privatecooperation to share information and identify counterfeit and genuine products.

Close cooperation between relevant agencies ofVietnam and foreign firms, including RoK ones, is also critical to improvingthe market management capacity, he added.-VNA