Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper since 1995

Mashadu said that sales of such products causes losses to producers from the point of view of violation of intellectual property rights, and to consumers, who are sold fake goods without guarantees. SXC Largest Ukrainian cement producers plan to step up their fight against counterfeit products using their brands, representatives of Cement Ltd., OJSC Podilsky Cement, Dyckerhoff Ukraine Ltd., Heidelbergcement Ukraine and Ukrcement Association at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine.

Deputy Director General of Odesa-based Cement Ltd. Mihel Mashadu said that in April, packages of cement with the official colors and logo of the company had appeared on the Odesa construction market. The packages, stamped with the PC II/B-400 cement logo, contained SHPC III/А-400 cement. In addition, the weight of the above-mentioned packages was 42-45 kilograms, while the package said that cement's weight was 50 kilograms.

Mashadu said that sales of such products causes losses to producers from the point of view of violation of intellectual property rights, and to consumers, who are sold fake goods without guarantees.

He said that the company had applied to Odesa and Kyiv regional department of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine, the Intellectual Property Protection Department in Kyiv, Odesa regional department for consumer rights protection and Odesa Prosecutor General's Office with the problem.

"All of the above-mentioned bodies have started investigating the case," Mashadu said.

He said that Odesa Economic Court issued a ruling banning city markets from selling packages that illegally use the Cement Ltd. trademark, ordering the seizure of counterfeit products, and banning companies from producing the packages.

He did not disclose how many packages with counterfeit cement were found on the Odesa markets and what companies produced it and supplied to the markets.

Commercial director of OJSC Podilsky Cement (Kamianets-Podilsky), part of Roadstone Holdings (CRH, Ireland), Anatoliy Dehtiarev, said that similar counterfeit products that uses trademarks of other producers have been seen all over Ukraine.

"We're alarmed at the problem, as we can confirm that cases [similar to those] registered in Odesa, have been seen in all regions of the country," he said.

Ukrcement Association CEO Petro Lopatiev said that this is not the first time cement producers have faced the problem of counterfeit products, however the experience of the Odesa plant is the most successful one.

"For several years, the plants have been fighting [the problem] more or less successfully. Odesa plant has had successful experiences," Lopatiev said.

Sales director at HeidelbergCement Ukraine Petro Hryhorchuk (part of HeidelbergCement Group) said that his company plans to issue special certificates to all reliable suppliers and later buy control products to check them.

"It's likely that we'll issue certificates to show that a certain representative on the market is a real representative of our company, and that we'll monitor sellers," Hryhorchuk said.

Sales Director at Dyckerhoff Ukraine Serhiy Dudziany said that the company by the middle of 2010 is to restyle their products and plans to sell its cement on European standard pallets.

"We'll restyle our logo [Dyckerhoff], changing red letter D to a blue letter Y. This is linked with the fact that Dyckerhoff Group joined International Buzzi Unicem Group, and is undergoing a total restyling. We're drawing up a program not to allow counterfeit packages with a blue letter Y, as with the red letter D... Also, we plan to sell cement only on European standard pallets with a plastic coating," he said.

In addition, Dudziany said that it is necessary to try changing cement consumers' attitudes in order to improve the situation.

"We've changed Ukrainians' consciousness, and [now they] don't buy milk on tram stops, and don't buy cereal in pedestrian passages... They buy it only from producers or good distributors. But they still all think that cement can be bought on the spot market in an unknown package and everything will be OK," he said.

Lopatiev said that it's not expedient to use holograms to protect high-quality products, as it would increase the price of products and affect end consumers.

Dudziany said that the recent increase of counterfeit products is explained by a fall in cement consumption by large construction companies, which buy cement in bulk, as they suspend construction, while demand for cement from small consumers, who buy cement in packages, has grown.

"Counterfeit products always exist, buy recently their volume grew, as demand for packages grew," he said.

Lopatiev said that while in 2008 the share of cement in packages was 20.6% of total cement shipped by the association's companies, and the share of cement in bulk was 79.4%, in January to May 2009 the share of cement in packages had risen to 27%, and that for cement in bulk had dropped to 73%.

Commercial director of the Ukrainian representative office of France's Lafarge Group, Mykola Puzenko, said that the share of cement sold in packages in 2009 would grow to 35%.