Wellington - The New Zealand Customs Service said Friday that it had signed a cooperation agreement with multinational manufacturer Procter & Gamble Co (P&G) to step up a drive aimed at stopping fake goods coming into the country. A statement said customs officers had intercepted 5,400 counterfeit P&G products, including toothpaste, shampoo, conditioners, creams, perfumes, anti-bacterial soaps and laundry detergents from entering New Zealand last year.

It said those products posed health and safety threats to consumers because "these counterfeit products are not produced to the same standards as legitimate products and could contain potentially harmful ingredients such as chemicals or bacteria."

The statement said that under the agreement with P&G, officers would be trained to tell the fakes from genuine products using a range of simple test kits the manufacturer had put together.

Auckland and Sydney, Australia were selected by P&G as targets for the new drive in the Asia-Pacific region because they had the highest number of seizures of fakes, the statement said. (dpa)