The Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association’s (GMSA) announcement that it intends to lobby the Guyana Revenue Authority for more rigorous checks of incoming cargo with a view to finding and confiscating counterfeit goods will probably not meet with a great deal of success, a Customs source told Stabroek Business on Wednesday.
The GMSA earlier this week issued a media statement in which it alluded to “a fast-growing epidemic of counterfeit products being sold to unsuspecting Guyanese” and declared that it would be engaging the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) “to address complaints of [importers of counterfeit items] under-invoicing their shipments, and to request that the thorough screening applied to outgoing containers be similarly applied to incoming cargo, which would help to identify the importers of counterfeit products.”
But the Customs source said that any additional searches and inspections on wharves that would “further hold up the flow” of incoming goods was likely to meet with “resistance” from importers who already complain about the length of time it takes to clear goods landed in Georgetown. The source added that he doubted the