Customs officers carried out a record number of operations against counterfeit goods entering the European Union last year, seizing millions of items of fake clothing, cosmetics, medicines, toys and cigarettes.

Relying on better intelligence and closer co-operation with European manufacturers, officials intercepted 43,000 shipments of pirated products at the EU's frontiers, up from 37,000 successful cases the previous year.

“There has been a worrying increase in sectors that are potentially dangerous to consumers - medicines, electrical equipment and personal care products. Counterfeiting continues to pose a dangerous threat to our health, safety and our economy,” Laszlo Kovacs, the European Taxation Commissioner, said as he presented the results of last year's fight against fake goods.

Cigarettes remain the favourite money-maker for countefeiters, accounting for more than a third of products seized last year. Clothing and fashion accessories feature in second place, while there were huge increases compared with 2006 in cosmetics (up 264 per cent), mainly from Georgia and Turkey, toys (up 100 per cent) and medicines (up 51 per cent). In contrast, seizures of fake CDs, DVDs and cassettes fell by almost 80 per cent, largely because the originals can be downloaded free from the internet.

China remained the leading source for virtually every category of fake consumer product, ranging from sportswear and fashionable handbags to jewellery and toys, accounting for almost 60 per cent of the seizures.

That, however, marked a sharp fall from China's 80 per cent share in 2006. This is partly due to the fact that almost 200 million packets of counterfeit cigarettes made in China were confiscated in Britain under smuggling legislation and do not figure in the report, but Mr Kovacs said that it also reflected a new desire on the part of the Chinese authorities to tackle piracy. “The country has an increasingly important economic and political role in the world,” he said, “and it can't allow itself to be labelled as the No1 source for counterfeit goods.”

The number of items seized fell from a peak of 128 million the previous year to about 79 million, reflecting a trend by criminals to ship fakes, often by post, in smaller quantities.

The disparity was particularly evident in France, which accounted for almost a third of the operations, but uncovered only 4 per cent of the items seized. Britain's share of seizures matched the number of counterfeit items it discovered, about 3 per cent.

Sources of fakes

57.92% China
4.92% Turkey
2.71% India
2.51% Georgia
2.06% Switzerland
2.01% UAE
2% Hong Kong
1.65% Bulgaria
8.58% Others
15.63% Unknown

Source: European Commission

Explore Economics

• Pre-Budget Report 2008

• Budget 2008

• World Economic Forum

• The Times MPC

Times Recommends

• Gazprom brands Ukraine 'a barbarian' in gas row
• Services sector raises fears over UK jobless
• Retailers surge as profits survive sales plunge