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Victoria Mindova

Illegally marketed goods will be destroyed on site by the municipal police and other authorities. This is the decision announced by the Directorate General of Trade at the Ministry of Regional Development and Competition as it could be already said that the streets of major cities in Greece are completely swamped by illegal goods. Until now, the procedure of keeping, describing and destroying the illegally marketed goods in Greece took between six months to a year. The state has spent enormous amounts as administrative costs for these procedures but the effectiveness of the controlling authorities has been extremely low because of the regulatory framework that has been in operation so far.

The familiar story with fake marks, goods of unknown origin and cheap imitations are a phenomenon not only on the sheets, not on the stands of the illegal immigrants from North Africa, but also in the shops of many Greeks, said the President of the Hellenic Chamber of Commerce Vassilis Korkidis. He was clear that to achieve real success in fighting illegal trade, which drains around 25 billion euros from the legitimate trade turnover each year, additional control measures should be introduced by the Customs, from the illegal warehouses to the street vendors.

The desperate situation of the Greek trade has led to desperate measures. The new decision for the immediate destruction of the illegal goods only catches the tail of the beast known as itinerant trading. The President of the federation of small traders and craftsmen Dimitris Asimakopoulos stressed that illegal immigration and the trade that follows it is not the only source of the problems in this sector. "Many of the counterfeit goods are produced locally by Greek entrepreneurs having illegal factories and small companies. Moreover, they not only affect blouses and bags, which Afghan and Pakistani sell on the streets, but the illegal imports of fuels, alcoholic beverages and many other fakes."

The chambers of commerce in the country the members of which are the direct victims of the illegal trade have been alarming for the critical condition of trade for years, "I pay taxes and increased obligations to the state and there is a boom in the trade in black," complained the owner of a shop for household goods in downtown Athens last week. The economic crisis, the increased tax burden and the growing problem of uncontrolled sale of products makes a lot of legitimate local traders to look for counterfeit goods to increase their profits.
 
"In many of the cases we found that shops with branded goods sell fakes. If you go for a walk in the back streets downtown Athens in a Sunday afternoon, where there are many illegal workshops and warehouses, you will see Greek traders to buy counterfeit goods in black bags. We do not cover anyone. This must stop," said Korkidis. Asimakopoulos added that the problem of illegal goods is not just in big cities like Athens and Thessaloniki, but also in Larissa, Volou, the Peloponnese and other regions. Particularly serious is the problem with the customs posts the control policy of which is questionable according to the representatives of the business elite in the country.

According to the data of the Hellenic Chamber of Commerce for 2010, over two million pieces of undeclared goods were captured at the customs. "Imagine how many crossed the border," said Vassilis Korkidis pointedly. "They catch the flies at the customs and let the elephants go," the president of the Federation of Greek Chambers Georgios Kasimatis told reporters in the presence of the Deputy Minister of Regional Development and Competitiveness Dinos Rouvlias. He was asked by a journalist: "Mr. Ruovlias, could you tell if the Greek customs are corrupted?" He did not get a response first. Then, the Deputy Minister acknowledged that corrupt practices could be found at certain levels of the state system but the government is fighting them.

The statement made by the Deputy Minister cheered the representatives of the chambers of commerce. In a conversation with GRReporter after the press conference the President of the Hellenic Chamber of Commerce Vassilis Korkidis said that the problems with itinerant trade and illegal imports have been serious for decades. They became particularly strong, however, after the Olympic Games in 2004, when the situation got out of control. We asked Vassilis Korkidis what is the reason for the sudden mobilization of the government in fighting the illegal trade, and he answered us: "It seems that the governors have understood for the first time that the six billion losses from taxes a year would be of their use."