JEDDAH: The Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) concluded the International Intellectual Property Protection Forum on Sunday in Riyadh.

The two-day event was organized by JETRO in cooperation with the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and Ministry of Finance (Customs Department). The jointly held event also included a workshop held under the name of the “Japan-Saudi Arabia IPR Protection Workshop,” which was created with the aim of educating Saudi officials about the methods used to distinguish genuine products from counterfeit ones.

According to 2007 statistics, world commercial fraud accounts for between 5-10 percent of global trade, valued at SR29 trillion with around SR187.5 billion annually being spent in the Arab world.

The participants of the workshop included 80 Saudi officials from the regional customs, Saudi Arabian Standard Organization (SASO) and the Commercial Fraud Control Department of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

Among the participants from Japan, Hirotaka Mizutani, director of IPR, customs & tariff bureau, ministry of finance, Japan introduced its experience regarding IPR protection.

Following his presentation, the heads of such well-known Japanese manufacturers as Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Denso, Seiko, Epson, Panasonic, Casio, Canon, and Hitachi also presented the latest identification technology methods using holography.

After the event, the delegation visited the Saudi Ministry of Commerce and Industry and Ministry of Finance to jointly discuss the ways of strengthening the local policies against counterfeiting and of building cooperation between both countries.

Speaking to Arab News about the event, deputy director general of JETRO, Toyokazu Fukuyama said the idea for organizing the forum came form Japanese companies who were interested in promoting property protection in the Middle East region.

“The Japanese delegation have already visited China and India in promoting property protection and saw that the Middle East region is experiencing economic growth and considers the Middle East as a market as important to Japan but unfortunately noted that as the economy is growing so is the local problem of counterfeiting and have taken initiative to help Saudi officials in combating the problem,” he said.

Fukuyama also said that he feels the event was a great success.