Abuja — Worried by the influx and proliferation of counterfeit products in the country, Senate Committee on Commerce announced yesterday that measures would be taken by the Senate to halt the trend.

Chairman of the Committee on Commerce, Senator Danlami Joel Ikenya said that the Committee was considering a number of amendments to the Nigeria Trade Act to protect the interest of Nigerian consumers.

He spoke at a meeting he held with a delegation from the Manufacturers' Association Nigeria (MAN), where he also urged the Nigerian Police Force, the Nigeria Customs Service and the Nigeria Immigration Service to save the nation from the menace of the smuggling of these fake products into the country.

Ikenya said that as a prelude to the legislative actions, the committee would convene a conference that would bring together relevant stakeholders to discuss how best to tackle the problem.

According to him, "The conference is slated to hold in the first quarter of 2009.

"Ikenya said that the incidence of proliferation of fake products had worsened with the collaboration of some unpatriotic Nigerians with foreigners.He told the MAN delegation, led by Senator Walid Jubril that the Senate Committee was happy to meet with it, saying. "No day would have been better than today (yesterday) for this crucial meeting.

"As you are aware, combating piracy and counterfeiting of products is not a small task in this country. Therefore, it is a fight in which everybody must participate to reduce it to the lowest level."Piracy and counterfeiting of products have affected the manufacturing sector and other sectors of the Nigerian economy.

This has reduced our country to a dumping ground. "Most of the manufacturing industries have closed down to the extent that the workforce is now in the labour market."

"The rate of social ills has increased in the society. Therefore, a national seminar on combating piracy and counterfeiting of products in Nigeria is a task that must be done. "The committee has gone round the country and has observed a lot of things that are not done correctly; we discovered that some of our industries are closed down as result of the invasion of the Nigerian market by Chinese products."We want to have this conference so that we can chart a way forward because we can no longer fold our arms and allow this kind of things to happen in our country."We also want to see how we can do away with some of the illegal dealings by combating piracy and counterfeit products. We are worried that this development has led to the present situation where the invasion of the Chinese products into our market has reduced our companies and the nation into a dumping ground."Senator Jubril had earlier informed the Senate committee that the incidence of the fake products proliferation had led to the closure of over 150 Nigerian Industries.According to him, "We are here to try as much as possible to address the issue of fake products in this country."He said that the textiles industry in the country had reduced from 175 to 20, adding that "it has also dropped from a staff strength of 250,000 to 24,000, and it cannot cope because our products are copied in China and sold back to us. Some Nigerians even make more monies from this business."