Beijing's Silk Street Market - Fake Goods Mall

25.03.2012

China’s most famous fake goods shopping mall in Beijing is going upscale. But piracy will remain its chief tenant.
Silk Street Market, which has welcomed former United States president George Bush, Olympic swimming champion Michael Phelps and busloads of Singapore tourists among the thousands who turn up daily, wants to have brighter lights and bigger shops.
“We are modelling the new Silk Street Market after mid- to high-range malls,” Zhang Yongping, president of Silk Street Market Group, said of the year-long project.
But in a sign that China’s struggle against intellectual property remains a losing battle, the country’s most famous emblem of piracy is not giving up on fake goods. Instead, it will offer better quality counterfeit products.
“We will replace the current inferior products with better quality, if not Grade A, items,” said Frank Young, deputy general manager of the famed seven-story complex, which started its remodeling last Sunday.
Foreign companies have long complained about piracy in China, and the authorities have pledged repeatedly to crack down on those who flout intellectual property rights (IPR).
For instance, China’s top judge Wang Shengjun told the National People’s Congress earlier this month that Chinese courts tried nearly 40 percent more IPR cases last year.
But a visit to Silk Street Market shows how weak IPR protection remains in the country and how popular copycats are.
The mall has rows of well-lit shops, almost all hawking pirated versions of luxury brands such as Coach, Prada, Ralph Lauren and Louis Vuitton.
Aggressive saleswomen usually mark up prices by at least 100 percent, which allows for the loud and boisterous bargaining Silk Street is well known for.
Still, undeterred tourists make a beeline for the mall, lured by the prospect of picking up counterfeit brand-name items at bargain prices.
“I got these Ralph Lauren shirts and sweaters at a steal. They may be fakes, but they cost about 15 times less than what I need to pay in my own country,” German tourist Jacob Mayer, 33, told The Sunday Times.

Explaining the attraction of Silk Street, consumer behavior analyst Zheng Yuhuang from Tsinghua University told The Sunday Times: “The quality of some replicas is so good that they are indistinguishable from the genuine products, and yet they cost at least 10 to 20 times less.”
The center has had its share of run-ins with foreign companies in the past. Several shops closed three years ago after brand owners complained that they were violating intellectual property rights.
But such instances are rare and enforcement remains patchy and weak most of the time.
“Selling counterfeits can be a short cut to making money for both the management and the sellers, and this explains the lack of motivation on the part of management to interfere with the vendors’ fake goods business,” said intellectual property rights lawyer Xu Xinming.
For now, Silk Street Market remains a thriving Beijing landmark.
Singaporean businessman Julian Chia, who manages pizza place Sarpino’s and Lavazza cafe at the mall, said: “Silk Street Market is the place to shop for tourists. It is probably as famous as the Great Wall and the Forbidden Palace when people talk about China.”