Jack Ma, the head of Alibaba, said that Chinese-made counterfeit products are often of a better quality and are cheaper than the genuine articles, complicating the effort to fight counterfeiting on the country's largest e-commerce websites. The declarations, reported by Bloomberg and other media outlets, were made by the tycoon on the occasion of an investors' day at his headquarters in Hangzhou, 200 km from Shanghai, on June 14. Ma explained that sub-contractors often launch on the markets models that are identical to those of their clients, and intellectual property rights are hard to protect when supply chains cannot be fully controlled. Alibaba's membership in the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition was suspended in mid-May, despite repeated promises by the company to fight against fakes and its collaboration with Chinese law enforcement authorities, as the e-tailer is still accused by some brands of offering platforms for counterfeit products.

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