The European Commission recently published statistics regarding customs seizures of counterfeit goods at the EU's external border in 2007.

The figures show that while the number of articles seized decreased (from last year's peak of 128 million articles to around 79 million), there has been an increase in the number of customs interventions involving counterfeit goods. As illustrated by the chart above, this is especially true for France.

"This is due to a growing number of seizures involving smaller quantities of counterfeit and pirated articles", according to the press release.

Articles seized in 2007 were mainly cigarettes (34%) and clothing (22%). Some other sectors have been increasingly concerned with counterfeit seizures in 2006: cosmetics and personal care products (+264%), toys (+98%), foodstuff (+62%), computer equipment (+62%) and medicines (+51%).

China appeared as the country of origin for 58% of the quantities seized in 2007. But

"... for some product sectors, other countries were found to be the principle source of counterfeit articles. In the category “Foodstuff and beverages”, Turkey was the main source followed by China; for the category “Cosmetics and personal care products”, Georgia followed by Turkey and China were the main sources and for the category “Medicines”, Switzerland followed by India and the United Arab Emirates were the main sources. Countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Tunisia are probably used as a transit stop, often with the purpose of hiding the real origin of the goods."