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US flags Kenya as booming market for counterfeit goods
Anti-Counterfeit Agency Coast regional boss Mr Yusuf Osman showing journalists some of the goods they impounded as counterfeit at one of the Mombasa Container Freight Station (CFS) on June 19, 2018.
The United States has named Kenya among the leading markets for fake goods, exposing consumers to safety and health dangers and denying American firms and government revenues.
The Donald Trump administration said in a report released on Tuesday that ineffective or inadequate intellectual property (IP) enforcement systems in the East African country are facilitating the entry of counterfeited goods largely from global manufacturing hubs in China, India, Turkey, and Vietnam.
The 2025 Special 301 Report on Intellectual Property Protection and Enforcement cites electronics, medicines, personal care products, apparel and footwear, and sporting wear among goods that enter the country with counterfeited trademarks of American companies.
Others are food and beverages, household consumer products, toys, chemicals, and automotive and aircraft parts.
The report, published by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), suggests the fake goods are shipped directly from manufacturing hubs or through transit hubs such as the United Arab Emirates and Singapore.
“The problem of trademark counterfeiting continues on a global scale and involves the production, transshipment, and sale of a vast array of fake goods,” USTR wrote in the report, warning that the US is ready to take enforcement action against unfair trade practices.
“The counterfeits are shipped either directly to purchasers or indirectly through transit hubs, including in Chile, Hong Kong, Kyrgyz Republic, Singapore, Türkiye, and the United Arab Emirates to third-country markets such as Brazil, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Paraguay, and Russia, that are reported to have ineffective or inadequate IP enforcement systems.”
Firms infringing on the IP rights of American firms, Washington laments, usually disregard product quality and performance in a bid to generate higher profit margins.
That has exposed legitimate manufacturers to diminished revenue and investment incentives, hurting employment opportunities and damaging corporate reputation when the goods are bought by consumers.
The firms further shoulder increased costs of enforcing their IP rights.
“Governments lose the tax revenues generated by legitimate businesses and may find it more difficult to attract investment when illegal competitors undermine their respective markets,” the report adds.
Trade in counterfeited goods is a booming business, whose value was estimated at $464 billion (about Sh60 trillion under current exchange rates) or 2.5 percent of global trade in goods in 2019, according to a study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) published in June 2021.
The USTR report has been published in the wake of Kenya’s Anti-Counterfeit Agency (ACA) reporting that the Anti-Counterfeit Authority Integrated Management System (Aims) experienced outages and instability in the year ended June, affecting the collection of information from IP rights owners.
ACA, as a result, recorded 185 IP rights for goods imported into Kenya in the review period, missing a target of 300.
“Target [was] missed due to the Aims system outage and instability experienced, thus affecting the number of applications received and processed,” ACA wrote in a budgetary review report late last year.
Importers are barred from importing goods that have not been registered with ACA under the Anti-Counterfeit Act, which also requires them to declare the IP rights for goods being imported into Kenya.
The anti-counterfeit goods watchdog conducted 8,040 inspections in the year ended June 2024, missing a target of 8,500 checks due to “budget cuts”, while its plan to procure two depots at the port city of Mombasa was also deferred because of the austerity measures.
At the global level, Washington singled out Singapore, the world’s capital for maritime trade, for alleged laxity in border enforcement, citing concerns from American companies over “lack of coordination between Singapore Customs and the Singapore Police Force’s Intellectual Property Rights Branch”.
“Our trading partners must address the concerns identified in the Special 301 Report and stop those stealing the intellectual property of hard-working businesses and individuals,” US Trade representative Jamieson Greer, a Cabinet member who serves as Mr Trump’s principal adviser and negotiator on trade matters, wrote in the statement accompanying the report.
“President Trump has a track record of empowering our innovators and workers, and this comprehensive report is a basis for the United States to take trade enforcement action against those not playing fairly.”
USTR report states that increasingly shrewd counterfeiters use legitimate express mail, international courier, and postal services to ship counterfeit goods in small consignments rather than ocean-going cargo to evade enforcement authorities. The dealers in fakes also ship goods separately from counterfeited labels and packaging to evade enforcement efforts.
“Counterfeiters also increasingly sell counterfeit goods on online marketplaces, particularly through platforms that permit consumer-to-consumer sales,” USTR wrote in the report.
“The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) urges e-commerce platforms to take proactive and effective steps to reduce piracy and counterfeiting, for example, by establishing and adhering to strong quality control procedures in both direct-to-consumer and consumer-to-consumer sales, vetting third-party sellers, engaging with right holders to quickly address complaints, and working with law enforcement to identify IP violators.”
