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increasing the staffing resources in the Intellectual Property Investigation Bureau of the Hong Kong Customs by 40%, from 117 in 1994-95 to 164 in 1996-97, in order to strengthen intelligence gathering, border surveillance and interceptions. Intensified enforcement action against the various blackspots selling pirated copyright products has been taken by Customs in recent months and will continue. A hotline to receive IPR infringement-related information has been set up in Customs since March this year,
a pro-active enforcement approach in the form of intelligence gathering and investigation work relating to alleged triad and organised criminal involvement in local and cross-border copyright piracy activities. Customs and the Police have been closely co-operating with each other on this front, resulting in a number of successful raids on storage. premises for pirated CD-ROMs;
providing new legislative tools to more effectively combat copyright piracy. The statutory maximum penalties against copyright piracy were substantially increased last May. New copyright piracy offence provisions are expected to be passed today in the Intellectual Property (World Trade Organisation Amendments) Bill 1995 to help tackle masterminds of cross-border piracy activities. New customs border measures will soon be put in place to facilitate copyright owners to take civil infringement action against pirates; and
forging closer co-operation between the Hong Kong Customs and the relevant counterpart authorities in China. Good progress has been made in the past month with the IPR-related enforcement agencies in the Guangdong Province and the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone on a number of initiatives, including setting up of specific contact points, exchange of information and intelligence, organisation of seminars and visits, and where appropriate, the possibility of mounting joint anti- piracy operations.