Cheap 'branded' items available at factory outlets

Friday, April 27, 2001
By Hera Diani

JAKARTA (JP): Factory outlets have become very popular among shopping freaks in this country.
It refers to a store where you can buy branded clothes, shoes and other fashion accessories at prices much lower than at official counters.
How is that possible?
The products are said to be surplus export products or rejected items. The labels have usually been cut, although many are still left on the clothes.
However, many suspect that the products at factory outlets are counterfeit.
One such person is lawyer George Widjojo, who once represented Adidas in a product counterfeiting case.
"If the products are surplus, then how come the quality is much lower than the original? The difference is really obvious," he told The Jakarta Post by telephone on Thursday.
A DKNY shirt, which costs hundreds of thousands of rupiah at an official outlet, for example, is available for less than Rp 50,000 (US$4.16).
Yongki Dwi Subagyo, general manager of Link Stok which has several stores in the capital, denied that the products were counterfeit.
"We have a factory in Cileungsi, Bogor, which exports clothes to the United Kingdom. Surplus products and seconds are sold here in our shops with permission from the license holder in the UK," he told the Post.
However, Yongki admitted that there were many producers who used leftover export fabrics to make their products.
"They then sew them and put well-known brands on them," he said.
Such a practice is indeed counterfeiting and is a copyright violation, but so far there have been no lawsuits filed regarding violations.
According to the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights' director general for intellectual property rights, A. Zen Umar Purba, so far there have been no complaints from license holders about products being copied and sold at factory outlets.
"Therefore, we can't do anything. It's not that we encourage such practices, but if there are no complaints, we can't do anything," he told the Post on Tuesday.
"You see, intellectual property rights are private rights, not public. So it depends on the owner, whether they file a complaint or a lawsuit or not," he added.
Purba said that many companies were reluctant to file suit as the legal process would burden them and cost them a lot.
"It's common in the United States, for example. Some license holders there let products, such as perfume, be distributed with the same brand and packaging as their products. They claim the targeted market is different anyway," he asserted.
That several companies were reluctant to comment on the matter when contacted verifies Purba's claims.
"So far, we haven't found any copyrights violations of our products," said a manager at PT Great River International who declined to be named.
Great River is a license holder for 30 brands such as Arrow, Triumph and Lee, which can be easily found at lower prices at factory outlets.
When asked about this, the manager refused to comment, saying she had no authority to do so.
Meanwhile, Chris Helzer, external affairs director for Southeast Asia region at Nike Inc., said that the company had found fake Nike products in virtually every country around the world.
"Companies like Nike are hurt because consumers that purchase counterfeit products are defrauded," he said when contacted via e-mail.
Nike, he added, invests a great deal to develop the products and if the items are copied, they cannot get an adequate return on the investment.
Helzer did not elaborate on whether the company planned to take legal measures, but said "we hope to work together with all parties to stop counterfeiting activities".
Separately on Thursday, Vice President Megawati Soekarnoputri also expressed concern over intellectual property rights violations, which she said had resulted in big losses.
In a written statement marking International Intellectual Property Rights Day on Thursday, Megawati acknowledged that law enforcement was still poor.
"There has to be breakthrough steps in overcoming the problem. We also need a solid intellectual property rights system," she said as quoted by Antara.
The system, she added, is not only important for law enforcement but also to improve economic growth.
For consumers, however, factory outlets are a savior in times of economy crisis when everything appears expensive.
Desy, 27, is a regular customer at a factory outlet because of the prices.
"The quality of some products may not be that good. They sometimes shrink or get bigger after washing, but most of them are OK," she said.
And for many other customers, the most important thing is they can enjoy "branded" products, the originals of which are out of their price range.

Labels: culture, urban

Posted by hera at 3:33 AM | Permalinks | Comments

Touts ease the hassle of getting passports

Saturday, April 21, 2001
By Hera Diani

JAKARTA (JP): Obtaining a document such as a passport in this country can be a major headache.
Long drawn-out bureaucratic procedures, irritating officers and pushy touts are among obstacles that have to be faced throughout the process.
No wonder people prefer to go to a service bureau or pay middlemen to get their passports done fast, even though it may cost them more than double.
Take Hery (not his real name), for example, who works at a TV production house.
The 26-year-old man was assigned by his office to go to Europe and was going to make a passport. But little did he know that it would cost him almost Rp 1 million to get it.
"I went to Tangerang immigration office. There, a man with an immigration office badge offered me help," he told The Jakarta Post recently.
The man asked for Rp 600,000 (US$54.5) to get him his passport, Hery said.
The official fee is Rp 110,000 for a 24-page passport and Rp 260,000 for a 48-page passport to be completed in a week.
"I didn't have much time so I said yes as long as the passport can be processed in one day," Hery said.
But then the man asked for another Rp 200,000 because Hery's identity card is less than a month old.
"He said that many people obtain ID cards in Tangerang to make things easier though they actually live in Jakarta," Hery said.
"The next day, I met a lady who only paid Rp 500,000 with the assistance of an 'insider'," he said.
Scalpers can easily be found at every immigration office, except the Central Jakarta office. Just walk inside and someone will approach and offer their services.
Someone like Marzuki (not his real name), a scalper at the crowded North Jakarta immigration office, located near Tanjung Priok port.
Marzuki admitted to being a middleman for 10 years now.
"There are many touts here. Most of them are unemployed sailors. As for me, I also work at a travel agency," said the man, who is in his 40s.
He charged between Rp 300,000 ($27.3) to Rp 600,000 per passport ($54.6), depending on the number of passport pages, either 24 or 48, and how long it can be completed.
"The faster you want to get it done, the more money you have to pay. But it's negotiable," he said.
"If all your documents are in order, let's go to my car outside and arrange everything. It's now 2 p.m., your passport will be ready by 10 a.m. tomorrow," he said.
If you are wary of touts you might as well go to a service bureau to arrange your passport.
They charge you somewhere between Rp 400,000 to Rp 750,000 depending on the type of passport and how quickly you need it.
The offices also provide a service where they will pick up the documents from your house and deliver your passport. All you need to do is just go to the immigration office to get your photograph taken.
However, for Indonesians of Chinese descent, they need to include their citizenship papers and pay an additional cost of Rp 100,000 to Rp 150,000 for the screening process.
Spokesman for the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights' Directorate General of Immigration, Mursanudin Ghani said that some of the service bureaus are indeed legalized.
"The bureaus are those who have been trained by the Ministry's Jakarta office. You recognize them from their badge," he told The Jakarta Post over the phone on Wednesday.
"It's a common thing in every country where people are busy and don't have time to arrange this kind of thing by themselves," he added.
About the price, Mursanuddin said, it is logical that the bureaus earn a profit from it.
"It's not that I'm justifying it, if there are complaints, please report them to us," he said.
Mursanuddin, however, admitted that it is difficult to combat scalpers.
"We can't take measures on them because that's the authority of the ministry's provincial office," he asserted.
Mursanuddin said that hopefully the whole process will be computerized so people could then just pay through a bank account.
"But it costs a lot of money. We actually received a soft loan of some $26 million from Spain, but the project was called off, I don't know why," he said.
About the discrimination over Chinese Indonesians, Mursanuddin was reluctant to provide a justification, saying that "there are some things that can not be disclosed".
"It's very easy to get a new birth certificate or an identity card. So we have to do the screening," he finally said, adding that the screening is officially free-of-charge.
However, concerning the hustle and bustle in obtaining passports, there are actually some people who do not mind going through the process all by themselves.
A woman at the North Jakarta immigration office was extending her passport without any assistance from middlemen and the process was swift.
"My friends said that immigration officers will make the process difficult if I don't give them money, so I gave them some. But they returned it to me," she said.
Ndari, 30, also refused to use either a tout or bureau, saying that her budget was limited.
"Besides that, I also want to know what it's like to arrange it by myself. And it turns out to be okay," she told the Post at the East Jakarta immigration office.
"Yes, I have to wait in line for three hours to get my photograph taken. But other than that, everything has gone smoothly and I got my passport on time," she added.

Labels: legal, urban

Posted by hera at 3:35 AM | Permalinks | Comments