For the second time since July, the Italian Institute for Foreign Trade plans to present the State Intellectual Property Office with a new list of 30 pseudo Italian brands in an ongoing war targeting shady marketing strategies used by Chinese businesses.
Giovanni de Sanctis, an intellectual property representative with the institute's Beijing office, said on Tuesday the institute had lodged complaints with the IP office saying that unscrupulous Chinese manufacturers had been discovered distributing goods falsely labelled as being Italian and made in Italy.
De Sanctis also noted that Chinese consumers were among the victims of the practice.
'The consumers find it hard to tell if these are authentic Italian brands and end up paying high prices for something that is not necessarily shoddy but not authentic,' he said.
According to a China Daily story posted on the IP office website, no Italian company has been named as a victim, but Italian IP authorities said the fake products could 'damage the image of the country and of made-in-Italy goods'.
Some manufacturers on the mainland have turned to such shady marketing strategies - projecting their made-in-China products as international brands - to take advantage of a faith in foreign brands among notoriously brand-conscious mainland consumers, amid a credibility crisis facing Chinese brands.
Most of the 30 Chinese businesses that the Italian institute named for trademark irregularities in its complaint last year are in Guangdong province and Beijing.