Phasakorn Channgam
About 150 retailers at Tukcom shopping center met with regional police and
political leaders hoping to bring an end to rampant sales of pirated goods at
the South Pattaya electronics mall.
Royal Thai Police deputy commander Gen. Chalermkiat Sriwornkhan and Chonburi
Permanent Secretary Chawalit Saeng-Uthai hosted the June 24 meeting at city
hall, called in response to the United States Trade Representative’s December
blacklisting of Tukcom and eight other Thai havens for music, movie and software
pirates.
Royal Thai Police deputy commander Gen.
Chalermkiat Sriwornkhan.
Chalermkiat told the vendors that Tukcom has been listed as a
“red zone” by the USTR, along with two in Phuket, two on the Cambodian border
and three in Bangkok. The designation damages Thailand’s international
reputation and needs to be remedied, he said.
The USTR said in late December that the eight “red zone” markets were selected
for inclusion to an already long list of Thai retail outlets both because they
exemplified wider concerns about global trademark counterfeiting and or
copyright piracy. Their scale and popularity can cause economic harm to the U.S.
and other intellectual-property rights holders, the trade representative’s
office said.
Chalermkiat said Region 2 police were ordered to crack down on Tukcom following
the embarrassing USTR report, but repeated raids have had no effect. Police,
thus, are changing tactics and trying to get cooperation from vendors by
“educating them on the issue so they are aware of the effect that breaking the
law has.”
“If the operators understand and learn of the losses that
comes from selling pirated goods and turn to selling real, legal items, it will
help change the foreigners’ attitudes about buying counterfeit products,”
Chalermkiat said hopefully. “If this is a success, it will definitely help
improve the image of Pattaya and bring the country back to the green zone
again.”
