A total of EUR 83 billion and 790,000 jobs are lost every year across the EU due to counterfeiting and piracy, Romania being the second most affected country by the lost sales due to counterfeiting as a share of the total sales.

Some EUR 830 million is lost annually in Romania as a result of counterfeiting in nine sectors, namely cosmetics and personal care, clothing, footwear and accessories, sports goods, toys and games, jewellery and watches, handbags, recorded music, spirits and wine, and pharmaceuticals. This represents 15.9% of these sectors’ sales, and translates into 26,600 jobs directly lost in the nine areas.

A series of studies carried out by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) through the European Observatory on Infringements of Intellectual Property Rights, estimates that over EUR 48 billion (7.4 % of all sales) is lost every year in the nine sectors, due to the presence of fake goods in the marketplace. Moreover, an additional EUR 35 billion is also lost across the EU economy due to the indirect effects of counterfeiting and piracy in these sectors, as manufacturers buy fewer goods and services from suppliers, causing knock-on effects in other areas.

The lost sales translate into close to 500,000 jobs directly lost or not created across these sectors in the EU, mainly due to the fact that legitimate manufacturers, and in some case distributors of corresponding products, employ fewer people than they would have done in the absence of counterfeiting and piracy. Moreover, when the knock-on effect of counterfeits on other sectors is taken into account, an additional 290,000 jobs are lost elsewhere in the EU economy.

Medicines is the most affected sector in Romania, with lost sales accounting for 16.6% of legitimate sales and four times the EU average. It is also the area with highest lost sales due to counterfeiting in absolute terms accounting for more than half of lost sales in all sectors.

The studies were carried out between March 2015 and September 2016 by the EUIPO.

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Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com