Listening to the news and enjoying a half-hour bubble bath are part of my morning routine. But a news item I heard recently got my day off to a bad start. I rushed through my post-bath preparations without touching any of the products I normally use.
The story concerned a 23-year-old Cambodian bride-to-be who died of an allergic reaction to a counterfeit skin-whitening body lotion.
I took a look at the shampoo, soap, lotion and toothpaste I use every day. Are they the real thing? Like most consumers, I normally just check where a product is made and the expiry date, before buying or using it.
It turns out that some school friends shared the same concerns when I raised the subject later that day. If we can't be sure that the products in our bathrooms aren't fake, what are we supposed to do? Turn back the clock and use salt to brush our teeth, or kaffir lime to wash our hair?
The Khmer Times in April carried a report about 100 tonnes of counterfeit products being destroyed in Phnom Penh. Most were harmful as they contained illegal chemical substances. Even scarier was a report that some sellers don't take expired products off the shelf, but simply slap a new, fake expiry date over the old one. A consumer has no way of knowing until it's too late and she breaks out in a skin rash … or something worse.
The list of suspect products in Cambodia is a long one: shampoo, hair dye and other cosmetics, illegal coffee products, meat, branded pepper products, mineral water, beer, animal fodder, and even medicine.
While crackdowns are welcomed, it would be better if they weren't necessary at all. Last year, the national counter-counterfeit committee said that almost 600 tonnes of fake products were seized in 19 separate cases.
Asia has long been a hotbed for the manufacture and sale of counterfeit goods, partly because of weak oversight at so many big ports in the region, OECD senior economist Piotr Stryszowski told the South China Morning Post recently.
Both the scale and the scope of the problem have been growing, he said. Counterfeiting has gone beyond the old favourites such as luxury watches, fashion and consumer electronics, and is now widespread in daily-use food, cosmetics and other goods.
Stamping out counterfeit goods not only helps save people's lives but can also help the economy. According to a report by the OECD and the EU Intellectual Property Office, fake products are worth nearly US$500 billion a year or roughly 2.5% of global trade, and the figure is expected to reach $991 billion by 2022. The counterfeit goods business is "a significant economic threat that undermines innovation and hampers economic growth", it noted.
Altogether, the negative impacts of counterfeiting and piracy are projected to drain $4.2 trillion from the global economy and put 5.4 million legitimate jobs at risk by 2022, the International Chamber of Commerce warned in a report last year.
Acknowledging the serious side effects of counterfeit goods on citizens' health, Cambodian authorities have been educating the public to identify the differences between real and fake goods by inspecting registration numbers, permission from relevant ministries and agencies, product packaging, and details of the producing country.
Despite efforts to suppress counterfeit goods along the border with Thailand, at markets, and even at production sites and warehouses, the authorities can't catch everyone. Meach Sophana, head of the counter-counterfeit committee, told a media briefing last year that counterfeiting is different from other crimes because authorities need to do exhaustive investigation and product testing to see whether a product is really fake.
"The police do not have the means to seriously filter whether the products are real or fake," he said.
Interior Minister Sar Kheng has acknowledged that the problem in the country was exacerbated by "a lack of collaboration between relevant ministries, and perpetrators are backed by powerful individuals".
Sar Mora, president of the Cambodian Food and Service Workers' Federation, was quoted in the Khmer Times article as saying that the problem reflected "a lack of law enforcement, and corruption issues. … Some perpetrators are rich and have power. They are never jailed."
Mr Stryszowski agrees. "Of course regulations are important, but only if they are enforced," he said.
But as more light is shed on the problem, there is a glimmer of hope that those in charge will feel emboldened to take up the battle before fake goods hurt or kill anyone else.
