Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I’m Frank, a student from international business. I’m glad to see you here. In my presentation today, I am going to talk about Chinese counterfeiting. Counterfeiting means something is made to look like the original of something. First of all, I’d like to begin my presentation by asking you all a question. Do you think Chinese counterfeiting must be punished? Ok, alright, most of you think Chinese counterfeiting must be punished. (Oh, it really surprises me, Ok, you agree with me that Chinese counterfeiting has to exist, but you surely don’t know why it has to exist). Many researchers have claimed that Chinese counterfeiting must be controlled and they do their best to defeat Chinese counterfeiting, but today I am going to argue the reasons why Chinese counterfeiting has to exist.
I have divided my presentation into 3 parts. In the first part, I will talk about why consumers like purchase counterfeit products. Then, in the second part, I’ll argue that producing counterfeits benefits China. And, to finish off, I’m going to argue that counterfeits promote the trade for original items.
So, let’s start by looking at some research from ABCNEWS. Chinese counterfeiting now costs foreign firms an estimated ['estimetid] $20 billion a year in lost profits. China is not only to make everything, but fakes just about every consumer product imaginable. And every day, tons of phony ['fəuni] goods are shipped out, mostly to the Middle East, Africa and South America. Why there are too many counterfeits come out of China? The reason is easy for us to answer, because consumers need it.
I would argue that counterfeits are more common than the originals because they are much low-priced. I want to share a case from AmritapaBas’s Indian blog. Several days ago, his modem adaptor got damaged and the reputed big stores serve him an adaptor which would have cost him over 1500 Indian rupees. Then he came to a Chinese market and bought an adaptor which only cost him 70 Indian rupees. It is this cheap rate helps Chinese counterfeit products to thrive in the markets.
Besides its low-price, it also comes up with top-quality fakes to satisfy consumers. I want to ask our tutors a question: Do you smoke? Do you know Yunxiao cigarettes? Yunxiao is a tobacco company which mainly produces fake cigarettes. Any brand or quality, Yunxiao can make it. For a long time now, a lot of Yunxiao's cigarettes have gone to Russia ['rʌʃə]. The feedback from Russian customers is that they've gotten used to the fake flavor, and now they don't want the real ones anymore. It’s funny that consumers pay the high price to purchase counterfeits rather than originals, isn’t it?
OK, OK, I still want to argue that counterfeit products have its special features besides its low price. I want to ask a question, do you know “copycatting”? “Copycatting” is a kind of Chinese counterfeit products and it is derived from the mobile phone industry in China and begins to be popular. Consumers purchase it not only for its low-price, but also for its imitative ['imitətiv] features which satisfy their special needs. Those copycatting mobile phones are not produced by any big companies and only designed by small factories. So its biggest feature is that it can be made in any shapes such as cars, watches and many many other things whatever you can imagine. I want to share some copycatting phones’picture with you. An iphone cost 4000 RMB and a copycatting phone only cost less than 1000 RMB, which one would you choose?
This leads you to my next point: why there are too many people choose copycatting phones rather than iphone? As you know, our society is an information society, everyday everyone needs to deal with massive information, and nearly everyone in the world must have a phone to help them to work, to survive in the world. Do you think every Chinese in China can afford for an