By Doreen Kansiime

MANUFACTURERS have been urged to trademark their products in order to discourage forgeries, the Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) has said.

Gyaviira Musoke, the UNBS head of import inspection also wants sole distributors to register their trademarks in the Ministry of Justice so tha other people do not import similar goods.

Last year, a delegation from the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce which was in the country found a number of their goods on the market which were not manufactured by them.

Recently when the managing director of Sony for Middle East and Africa Masaru Tamagawa was in the country to open the Sony showroom, he talked about counterfeits of their products on the market.

He said he was going to make the legal department look into it.

“There are a number of companies facing this problem and we get a number of complaints especially from sole distributors of certain products in Uganda,” Musoke said.

He said the most recent complaint they had received was from Bamu International Uganda Limited, the sole distributors of the Double Happiness match sticks.

They found other people selling their product on the market and yet Shandong Light Industrial Products Import and Export Corporation manufactures only for export.

“It does not sell to the Chinese local market.

“So where do some of these people get these goods is the big question,” Musoke asked.

He said there was not much UNBS could do for the importers because they were concerned about the standards of the goods traded on the market.