A survey of four dozen major companies says business leaders regard China and Russia as the worst offenders in allowing product piracy and calls on governments worldwide to do more to protect patents and other intellectual property.
The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), which conducted the survey with London's Cass Business School, also listed other offenders including India, Brazil and Indonesia.
China is regarded as the world's leading source of counterfeit goods ranging from Hollywood movies to designer clothes, food products and anti-AIDS medications. Russia also is a growing producer of illegally copied products.
"We are particularly concerned about the risks for consumers from unsafe counterfeit products," said Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, chairman and chief executive officer of Swiss food company Nestle, in a statement released by the ICC.
The report gave no examples of consumer risks, but China abounds with fake products that have damaged public health, from liquor made of industrial alcohol to counterfeit milk powder that led to babies dying of malnutrition.
The survey, released on Monday in Geneva, did not give a figure for the companies' lost potential sales to piracy. But US officials say piracy in China alone costs firms worldwide up to US$50 billion a year.
The EU says two-thirds of all counterfeit goods seized in Europe originated in China, according to the Paris-based ICC.
ICC said survey respondents ranked countries by the strength of their anti-piracy laws, whether the governments provide adequate resources to enforce them and public attitudes toward piracy.
Other nations that were ranked as having the worst protection for intellectual property were India, Brazil, Indonesia, Vietnam, Taiwan, Pakistan, Turkey and Ukraine.
"The mention of these bottom-performing countries shows the problem is indeed worldwide and requires a global solution," ICC secretary-general Guy Sebban said in the statement. "We need to educate policymakers that greater investments in [intellectual property] enforcement will translate into more jobs and tax revenues, and also help them in the fight against organized crime."
The survey ranked the US as having the best protection for intellectual property, followed by Britain, Germany, France and Japan.
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