On Sunday 4 February, a training workshop for customs officers was held in Aboisso and organized by UNIWAX's Anti-counterfeiting department.

In collaboration with the National Committee for the Fight against Counterfeiting (CNLC), this workshop, which brought together 42 customs officers, focused on two aspects :

• Customs seizure procedures and the drafting of seizure reports (facilitated by the CNLC) and,
• Identification of Vlisco Group brands as well as African fabric features (facilitated by UNIWAX's Anti-counterfeiting department).

The main objective of the meeting was to educate customs officers on the prerogatives conferred on them by Act No. 865-2013 of 23 December 2013 on the fight against counterfeiting and piracy ; it was also an opportunity for our anti-counterfeiting department to share all the criteria necessary for differentiating between real and counterfeit African fabrics.

At the end of this training, an assessment of the knowledge acquired by customs officers enabled them to ensure that they now had the necessary tools to properly carry out their task. Subsequently, the next steps followed by UNIWAX will be to submit a request for intervention to the Aboisso Regional Directorate and Noé's office and to put the most copied patterns on a digital media so as to ease customs controls.

However, the Brand Protection department will have to remain alerted given the late hour of cargo unloading at Noé's border.

Click here to learn more about counterfeiting.