Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - The General Department for Market Surveillancehas shown determination in the fight against counterfeit goods and trade fraudproducts in e-commerce channels.

Last year saw e-commerce flourish and it is forecast that this will continue inthe coming years. Therefore, the fight will be increasingly fierce this year,especially as "the border gate is at the door of each citizen",according to one official.

Tran Huu Linh, director-general of the General Department for MarketSurveillance, said that in the past, large warehouses were often located in bigcities such as Hanoi and HCM City, but now, the largest warehouse is located inthe northern mountainous province, just a few kilometres from the border.

Along with that, modern logistics, delivery and payment services help bring the"border gate" to the front of houses, he added.

By just packing the goods and delivering them to shipping companies, the goodscould be taken anywhere domestically without any difficulty, said Linh.

This created more challenges for authorities as transactions through e-commercebecome more and more popular with all people, he noted.

“We have determined that there must be a more professional and methodical planin this fight. In the immediate future, it is necessary to propose units in theMinistry of Industry and Trade to soon submit to the Government a decreereplacing Decree 52/2013 on e-commerce," Linh told online newspaper phapluatplus.vn.

One reason the decree is needed is the speed of e-commerce development, meaningit's time to consider and treat goods in the e-commerce environment as in thetraditional environment, he noted.

Linh said that the decree was issued to promote the development of e-commerce,so it has not strictly regulated goods traded via e-commerce.

Besides, the decree has not specified the responsibilities of e-commercetrading floor managers. This loophole has caused the floors not to strictlycontrol the origin of the goods displayed for sale.

Therefore, it was necessary to hold e-commerce floor owners responsible so thatwhen having trade fraud problems, they are also subject to inspection andpost-inspection sanctions. Important services including payment andtransportation would also be included in the new decree, he said.

In addition, the General Department for Market Surveillance will focus one-commerce for two to three years because as it was forecasted that the ratioof trade fraud in e-commerce would be about 50-60 percent in that periodcompared to overall types of fraud in general, said Linh.

That is why the General Department for Market Surveillance has built arelatively comprehensive plan to mobilise strength for this tough combat.

It is proposed to set up an official division of the market surveillance forcespecialised in preventing fraud in e-commerce, at the same time, improving thepost-inspection capacity of the market surveillance force and regularlyreviewing and inspecting e-commerce trading floor owners and social networkingplatforms./.