Cristiane Ribeiro
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Rio - The secretary of Economic Rights in the Ministry of Justice, Daniel Goldberg, reaffirmed, yesterday (10), that piracy in Brazil is responsible for economic losses on the order of 30% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). By this calculation, last year's losses amounted to around US$ 230 billion. For this reason, Goldberg argued, the campaign against counterfeit merchandise is one of the priorities of president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's Administration.

Goldberg, who participated this week in the Second Cycle of Studies of Regulation, in Rio de Janeiro, said that, besides the Federal Police and the Federal Revenue agency, the government possesses a Council to Combat Piracy and a Consumer Protection and Defense Department - all of them with the mission of suppressing the black market. He said that the National Consumer Protection System, which can be accessed on the internet, provides information on counterfeit products that represent safety hazards to the population.

Goldberg explained that the information is updated on-line with the help of ten state Consumer Protection agencies (Procons), as the list of counterfeit products grows daily. According to the secretary, the most flagrant falsification is of CDs, DVDs, clothes, and sneakers. Nevertheless, there is also piracy involving goods like eyeglasses, lenses, medicines, and, most recently, scalpels.

"It is recognized internationally that there have never been as many efforts to combat piracy as the ones implemented in Lula's Administration. Piracy is one of the priorities of Federal Police action, and the government created the Council to Combat Piracy as a priority strategic organ of interministerial coordination," he added.

Translation: David Silberstein