JEDDAH: More than 1,000 experts will attend the first Arab forum for protection of consumers from trade fraud that begins at Jeddah Hilton today. Makkah Gov. Prince Khaled Al-Faisal will open the event organized by the Arab League. More than 30 speakers from Arab and other countries will address the three-day forum, which will set out strategies to prevent trade fraud and imitation of goods. Khaled Al-Hamdan, a member of the organizing committee, said the losses suffered by businesses as a result of copyright violations in the Arab world were estimated at more than $50 billion annually. More than half of computer programs used in Arab countries are imitated one, he added.
