China's E-Commerce giant Alibaba has hit back at U.S. accusations of it making inadequate efforts to combat the sales of counterfeit goods on its Taobao platform. An Alibaba spokesperson said the company is dedicated to the fight against counterfeits.
"Alibaba group is very disappointed with the US Trade Representative's decision to include Taobao on its list of notorious marketplaces. Four years ago, it was exactly the same office that removed us from this list," said Zhang Yuan, spokesperson, Alibaba Group.
"In the past four years, Alibaba has worked with brand stake holders, and legal institutions to crack down on counterfeiting behaviours. The company has also been more advanced and more effective in protecting intellectual property rights."
Alibaba said the company has set aside 160 million dollars to clear fake products on Taobao. In the 12 months to August, Alibaba has taken 380 million products off the shelf, and closed 180 thousand Taobao shops.
Alibaba spoke after the USTR on Wednesday returned Taobao to its blacklist of "notorious marketplaces" for the sale of counterfeit goods and violations of intellectual property rights.
The USTR acknowledged that Alibaba had taken steps to combat piracy. However, the USTR said the current levels of reported counterfeiting and piracy were "unacceptably high," with such goods posing a "grave economic threat" to U.S. creative and innovative industries.