Hong Kong's customs authority recently revealed that it had detected a total of 282 smuggling cases in 2013, an increase of about 40 percent compared with 2012.

 

The commissioner of Hong Kong's Customs and Excise, Clement Cheung, said that the total seizures of the smuggling cases worth 652 million HK dollars (83.97 million U.S. dollars), an increase of 90 percent.

 

Cheung said as smuggling between China's mainland and Hong Kong had been on the rise and more complicated, the customs restructured its internal organs in early 2013 to improve effectiveness of joint operations with the mainland and overseas law enforcement agencies.

 

On intellectual property rights protection, the number of infringement cases detected increased by 30 percent to 720, of which 88 percent involved counterfeit goods.

 

Cheung said with the growing popularity of the Internet and rapid growth of e-commerce, the cases of online sale of counterfeit goods and that of delivering infringing goods by courier services surged by 1.7 and 1.5 times respectively.

 

The department has strengthened communication with Hong Kong Post and is liaising with the logistics industry to address the issue at source, he said.

 

Deputy commissioner of the department, Luke Au Yeung, said that the department would set up a dedicated team to foster liaison and intelligence exchange with the mainland and overseas enforcement agencies to combat transnational drugs trafficking.

 

Enforcement at source would be able to curb the inflow of drugs to Hong Kong or other destinations via Hong Kong, further enhancing the department's drug detection capability at the Hong Kong International Airport and land boundary control points, he said.

(Source: Xinhua)