doing business in myanmar – what you need to know as a singaporean
There have been rampant sale and distribution of counterfeit alcohol in Myanmar and VICTORY Myanmar Group Co Ltd manufacturing Mandalay rum has so far filed 21 lawsuits.
Those cases have been filed by the market monitoring group of the company from August 2017 to date. Fake alcohol distillers and distributors now face lawsuits under Section 420/486 and Section 420/468 of the Penal Code of Myanmar. The maximum punishment is seven years of jail sentence.
The largest alcohol manufacturing companies in the country are facing two primary challenges—production of counterfeit alcohol and production of legit alcohol but under brand names almost similar to other famous brands.
Myo Zaw Oo from VICTORY Myanmar Group Co Ltd said most counterfeit alcohol producers come in the form of the cottage industry. They produce fake alcohol mixed with OP alcohol and other chemicals. Legitimate alcohol companies seek to buy empty bottles of alcohol for re-use in their products but they could never collect to a full percentage as counterfeiters are also buying them out to use in for their fake alcohol.
Wutyi Hnin, marketing director of the company, said: “We have found some brands in local market. They are named almost similar to our brand. The bottle type is the same. Logos are similar. A buyer can easily mistake it for our products.”
In the country there is only one way to find out counterfeit brands and it is by scanning the QR code that comes with the bottles.
Grand Royal Group public relations manager Hla Myat Thu said her company had faced very few cases of counterfeit alcohol because they are on top of monitoring local markets closely.
SOURCE: ELEVEN MYANMAR
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