Imitations of luxury clothing and footwear flowed in Slovakia, hundreds of pieces of counterfeit goods were seized by customs officers
Last year, 1,109 pieces of counterfeit goods were seized in Slovakia. Compared to the previous year, this represents a decrease of more than 35%.
As reported by the Slovak Industrial Property Office, the estimated value of seized goods in the entire European Union amounts to more than 1.2 billion euros. Slovakia contributes EUR 2.1 million to this figure.
Imitation clothing and footwear
last year, border control managed to obtain 42 million pieces of counterfeit goods. In 2020, 27 million pieces were seized in this way.
Among the confiscated goods, the most common were imitations of clothing, shoes, luxury handbags, watches, perfumes and cosmetics. China is the leader in the volume of produced and imported illegal goods, followed by Turkey and Hong Kong.
Increase in counterfeit goods
Not only controls at the borders, but also those on the internal market of the Union revealed an increase in counterfeit goods. According to data from the police, customs and market surveillance authorities, the number of goods seized last year infringing intellectual property rights was around 7 million more than in 2020, representing an annual growth of 16%. Up to 62% of the goods were seized in Italy, France, the Netherlands, Spain and Hungary.