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Smuggled goods detected by HCM City Market Surveillance Department.

According to the Market Surveillance Department, the business in e-commerce, social networking sites, e-commerce platform … is very complicated, with diverse types of infringing goods. The creation of account using fake information to sell goods makes is difficult to identify the violator and storage site of infringing goods for inspection and handling. The delivery of goods through freight forwarding services; infringing goods are transported by motorbikes in small quantities, so it causes difficult for the law enforcement authorities in detecting and handling.

The smuggling and trading in fake goods, unknown origin, goods infringing on industrial property rights, and trade fraud still do not decrease. Especially, the infringing goods that are transported from the southwest border to the inland and stored at warehouses, transit sites and sold in tourist streets, targeting areas and commercial centers in Vietnam, will increase in the last months of the year.

To prevent smuggling, especially in the last months of 2023, HCM City Market Surveillance directs Market Surveillance Teams to supervise, verify and promptly detect and handle offenders in targeting areas, inter-provincial roads, national highways and at warehouses, yards and storage sites for goods.

Regarding the petroleum market, inspection results of the HCM City Market Surveillance Department show that the current business is basically stable; the prices of petroleum products are revised up but the supply of petroleum products is still sufficient to meet market needs. However, it is necessary to closely monitor petroleum business activities to promptly prevent, and handle acts of stopping sales without a legitimate reason, acts of hoarding goods, and trading of low quality petroleum products.

In the first ten months of 2023, HCM City Market Surveillance Department conducted 53,146 specialized and interdisciplinary inspections, decreasing by 0.63% year-on-year.

Of which, the total number of specialized inspections was 3,981 cases, an increase of 1,381 cases (up 53.11%); the number of violations was 3,576 cases, an increase of 1,673 cases (up 87.91%) compared to the same period last year.

HCM City Market Surveillance Department collected over VND 73 billion (up 89.88% year-on-year), including over VND62.2 billion in administrative fines, over VND 10 billion from the sale of seized goods and over VND1 billion in arrears of illegal profits. The value of destroyed goods was VND 54 billion (up 62.51% compared with the same period of the previous year). The value of confiscated goods waiting for sale was about VND111 billion and goods waiting for destruction was about VND5.68 billion.

The leader of HCM City Market Surveillance Department said that the department has developed and implemented a peak plan on fighting against smuggling and trade fraud, and counterfeit goods before, during and after Lunar New Year 2024. Along with that, the department has built a working plan in 2024 that focus on specific solutions in controlling the market, preventing the trading of smuggled and infringing goods.

The department has requested the Market Surveillance Teams to take measures to inspect and handle violations related to counterfeit and smuggled goods, unknown origin goods in targeting key areas, and control groups of petroleum products, food, cosmetics, chemicals, and animal feed.