Twenty-eight multinationals who have significant investments in China have teamed up to address the problem of counterfeiting.

The Quality Brands Protection Committee (QBPC), under the China Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment (CAEFI), was formally unveiled in Beijing March 2 with the 28 companies as initial members.

The QBPC is the representative body of the China Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition, established in 1998 by a group of multinationals with more than US$6 billion invested in China.

The committee, as a non-profit social institution, will resort to an enterprise-government co-operation approach to settle the counterfeiting problems.

It plans to co-host seminars with central and local government agencies, conduct studies, exchange information, and raise public awareness of existing regulations, said Joseph Johnson, president of Bestfoods China and chairman of QBPC.

"Counterfeiting is a serious impediment to our members' current business and future investment in China," said Johnson. "We believe the central government fundamentally understands this."